Using Social Media to Engage Young People on Agribusiness

How do you get young educated young people interested in agriculture? This is the question that the MARKUP team in Kenya was grappling with. The opportunities to improve export and add value to a wide range of fruits and vegetables were fairly well known among farmers in the country, but most of them were middle-aged and actively looking to pass the baton to younger people. Under the leadership of UNIDO, the team knew they had to use platforms popular with young people. That is how Mazao Talks was born.

  Mazao Talks is a Google Podcast that tells stories of ordinary people tackling the challenges in the agri-food business, with a special focus on the issues that young people can identify with. UNIDO partnered with Semabox to generate content and promote the podcast through media personalities popular with young people. Available via You- Tube, Spotify, Instagram, Anchor and Twitter Spaces, Mazao Talks has proved very popular since it was launched in 2020. To date, over 12.7 million people have interacted with Mazao Talks across multiple platforms, making it the second biggest corporate podcast in Kenya, after the NMG x SportPesa podcast. The six episodes aired in the first season of Mazao Talks, reached over 40,000 Instagram users between the ages of 25 and 40 via sponsored posts, with online engagements through Twitter Spaces as well. According to data from MARKUP Kenya, Mazao Talks was listened to in 14 countries, with the website getting over 100 weekly visits.

‘We are extremely excited at this fresh opportunity to engage with Kenya’s young people and share agri-business news and information that we have built up at MARKUP Kenya. The future of this country relies on our ability to produce food at scale and this is only possible by getting our youth engaged in agri-business,’ said Mr Maina Karuiru, the National Coordinator of MARKUP Kenya.

Mazao Talks has helped the youth identify opportunities in agribusiness through stories of how technology can be applied at various points from farm to fork. The podcast also advocates for youth-friendly policies in agriculture.

Catch up with Mazao Talks at: https://mazao.markupkenya.org/podcast-page/