When the harvest season came in Laikipia, Jecinta Mugambo and her group would celebrate, briefly. Within weeks, the excitement would fade as jars of honey remained unsold, lining shelves for months.
“We used to harvest our own honey, refine it, and sell it to our neighbours,” Jecinta recalls. “But we didn’t have a consistent market. Sometimes we would keep honey for up to four months without selling it. The business could not sustain itself.”
As the leader of the Osuguroi Self-Help Group, a collective of 38 members, Jecinta had seen firsthand how a promising livelihood could stall. Despite owning hives and having basic training, the group was stuck: limited skills, poor productivity, and no reliable pathway to market. With each unsold batch, the risk of abandoning beekeeping altogether grew.
The turning point came not with more hives, but with a different approach.
Through the Nurture Project working with Savannah Honey Ltd, the group encountered a model that addressed both production and market constraints, working through a private sector partner,
“What caught our attention was the training,” Jecinta explains. “Before, we only focused on honey. Through the project, we learned that bees produce many other valuable products that can generate even more income.”
This shift, from a narrow product focus to a broader understanding of the beekeeping value chain, marked the beginning of transformation.
Hands-on technical support improved hive management, harvesting practices, and quality control. At the same time, structural bottlenecks were addressed. Of the group’s 50 hives, 30 were refurbished, turning underperforming assets into productive ones.
A long-standing barrier, the lack of an apiary, was also resolved.
“We had tried to plan for an apiary ourselves, but the cost was too high,” Jecinta says. “Savannah Honey stepped in to support its construction, something we could not have achieved on our own.”
The new apiary now offers a centralised, secure space for the hives, reducing losses from theft and animal interference while improving overall management.
Beyond infrastructure and skills, one of the most significant changes has been a shift in mindset.
“The Nurture model has built ownership among us,” Jecinta notes. “Each member bought a hive, and this has made everyone more committed.”
Motivated by clearer market opportunities and increased confidence, group members collectively invested in 70 additional hives using their own resources, a strong signal of trust in the business case for beekeeping.
Where the group once struggled to sell existing produce, they are now preparing for increased output with a ready buyer in place. What was once an uncertain side activity is now evolving into a structured, income-generating enterprise.
For communities in Laikipia, where livelihoods often depend on climate-sensitive activities like pastoralism, this shift matters.
“Unlike pastoralism, which depends on pasture availability, beekeeping can sustain itself,” Jecinta explains. “With access to markets, it can become a reliable source of income.”
Beekeeping is emerging as a complementary and more climate-resilient livelihood, one that requires relatively low land use while supporting environmental conservation.
The experience of the Osuguroi Self-Help Group points to something bigger than one group’s success.
By combining skills development, private sector engagement, and market access, the Nurture model demonstrates how addressing multiple constraints simultaneously can unlock rural enterprise. It moves beyond input-based support toward building functioning market systems where producers are not just participants, but investors and decision-makers.
Already, the impact is rippling outward.
“We are already seeing others inquire about the project,” Jecinta adds. “We believe this approach can expand and benefit even more people in our community.”
As interest grows, the model offers a replicable pathway for other underserved regions — showing how smallholder producers can move from subsistence to market readiness when the right ecosystem is in place.
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This Project is implemented by Swisscontact and funded by Wyss Academy for Nature.