Farmer from Kenya works to make agriculture profitable

In many other countries, farming is more of a necessity and not as much as a way to earn income. But some farmers are changing that mindset.

At the World Food Prize this year, farmers gathered from around the world as part of the Global Farmer Network. Rodney Kili is a second generation farmer from Kenya. He farms maize, barley, wheat, sunflower, and canola with his father and brother. They also have 25 dairy cows and are working to expand that business.

The Kili farm uses minimum tillage practices for land preparation and works to improve soil structure to help with water capacity and infiltration to deal with weather and climate issues.

The operation is mechanized and uses GPS, and the Kili's have their own silos and maize mills to processing food for sale.

Kili says 90 percent of farmers in Kenya do small-scale farming and most of the young people don't want to go back to the farm after school.

He says, "At first, people thought it was impossible to see an African farmer be this successful, seeing a young person like me coming out of school and getting into farming. People get surprised, but I don't want to scare people away, I want to show them that we can do this, it is possible for us to do this."

Kill adds he provides internships to students from different universities. They host them for three months and he says those students leave believing they can make a living in agriculture.