Thika – Today, top USAID officials visited the Fresh Produce Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) Training Center demonstration farms to observe how the Brand Kenya campaign is supporting Kenya’s produce exporters to access international markets.

USAID Associate Administrator Mark Feierstein and Assistant Administrator for Africa Earl Gast met with produce farmers and exporters who are working with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to transform the FPEAK’s Practical Training Center into a central one-stop-shop for horticulture information. Through the U.S. Government’s Feed the Future initiative, USAID has invested $950,000 in the training center to expose farmers to practical ways of successfully growing all types of horticultural produce, with a special emphasis on compliance with export requirements.  More than 200,000 Kenyan small holder horticulture producers will benefit from the program, which will lift 550,000 rural farming families out of poverty by 2015.

“This Practical Training Center illustrates USAID’s new development approach that leverages public-private partnerships to deliver measurable results.  Supporting FPEAK and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute to train small holder farmers to produce export quality crops is a superb example of how this new model is working to transform the face of poverty in Kenya,” said Feierstein.

Feierstein and Gast are in Kenya this week to evaluate the progress of President Obama’s initiatives toward fostering public-private partnerships to address the U.S. and Kenya’s shared development objectives.