Farmer First: Meet Joseph
“The same God who created the soul, created the land. When I take care of the land, I also take care of my soul. We are connected and have a mandate to care for the land, not just for the sake of the land but for the sake of your own soul as well. It’s not either/or, it must be both. So we work to transform land to create opportunities, and this is holistic Kingdom work.” - Joseph, CEO of Nulands
Every first of the month, we highlight a farmer we love. Some of these are current or former partners, some are AgG volunteers or donors, and some are just amazing people we get to meet along the way.
Today we’re highlighting an big-hearted farmer named Joseph, a Kenyan farmer who is passionate about using his background in real estate to help underserved neighbors buy and start growing on their own farm!
Joseph showing our team a ripe cayenne pepper.
In East Africa, water is a historic challenge.
A clever way to recycle, using old tires as a wind guard.
The farm cat who keeps mice away (and tempts the local hyenas).
It was an honor to tour Joseph’s farmland near the Maasai region of Kenya. We stopped to admire The Great Rift Valley along the road and sipped coffee before turning off the highway to kick up a dirt-road dust cloud.
“People think water is impossible out here,” Joseph shared as we bumped along, “And it really is dry, but you don’t have to drill far to reach fresh water.”
Joseph is passionate about giving opportunities to the least served people around him, and that often means women and minorities. “Maasai women are often treated like property, not given many opportunities, and rarely have ways to generate income. So we specifically hire Maasai women to make sure they have ways to earn and secure a living,” Joseph explained.
As of this writing, we aren’t currently partnering with Joseph or Nulands, but we want to give him and his team a shout out to honor their efforts. Partner or not, Joseph embodies our mission of ‘impacting lives through agriculture’ in his home community and is using his skill in ag and real estate to pull people out of poverty every year, and we honor him today!
