“Every by-product has potential”: Inside Kenya's youth-led push for circularity

In Kisumu’s bustling Obunga neighbourhood, the scent of dried fish lingers in the air. Here, young people earn their living from the fish-processing value chain that connects Lake Victoria’s catch to global export markets. Every day, truckloads of Nile perch arrive at nearby processing plants, where fillets are packaged for export and by-products heads, skins, and bones are sold to local traders for reuse.

At the Obunga market, these by-products rarely go to waste. Fishmongers turn the skins into fish balls and the bones into hearty soups for households. But one part of the fish has long remained unwanted the scales. They pile up in sacks behind the processing sheds, emitting a pungent smell and clogging drainage channels during the rainy season.

“We realised fish scales could do more than fill bins they could feed animals and our pockets,” says Duncan, a member of the Turuhusu Tupite Youth Group in Obunga.

After participating in the Engaging Kenyan Youth in Agribusiness and Nutrition (EKYAN) initiative’s Green Jobs training, Duncan and his peers found new ways to turn overlooked materials into valuable inputs for agribusiness. With this new insight, they began collecting fish scales from local processors and fishmongers, drying and grinding them into powder, then mixing it with maize bran to produce a nutrient-rich animal feed. The group first tested the feed on their own six pigs and fifteen chickens.

Within weeks, they say, the pigs gained noticeable weight and the chickens’ feathers looked glossier early proof that the formula worked. Encouraged, the group began packaging small batches for sale to nearby farmers.

“It’s clean, affordable, and packed with nutrients,” Duncan says, holding a handful of their freshly mixed feed. “We started small, but now we produce enough for our pigs, chickens, and even to sell to neighbours.”

Today, the Turuhusu Tupite Youth Group supplies feed to dozens of farmers in Kisumu and nearby settlements. Their small workshop near the fish factories has become a model for how urban youth can innovate within existing value chains turning waste into opportunity and pollution into prosperity.

Fifty kilometres inland, in the sugar belt of Muhoroni, another team of youth was confronting a different form of waste. Poultry droppings and feed leftovers often piled up around chicken houses, attracting pests and releasing foul odours. For the Muhoroni Youth Group, the same EKYAN training sparked an idea: recycle the waste to feed worms and use the worms to feed chickens.

“We used to throw everything away,” recalls Christine, the group’s chairlady. “Now we know every by-product has potential.”

With technical guidance from EKYAN mentors, the group began cultivating worms, drying them, and blending them with maize bran to make a nutrient-dense poultry feed. Their innovation cut feed costs by nearly half and created a small but steady income stream.

Across Kisumu County, these two youth groups are proving that climate action and enterprise can go hand in hand. Their work doesn’t just create income it models a mindset shift from scarcity to resourcefulness.

Further west in Busia County, the hum of grinding machines fills a modest shed near Port Victoria, where the Bunyala Agri-Climate Youth Group is busy producing fish feed from locally available materials such as maize bran, rice husks, and black soldier flies (BSF). What began as a handful of youth has now grown into a community-based organisation of more than 100 members.

As he walks through the milling station, Kevin, one of the group’s founding members, gestures proudly toward rows of stacked sacks ready for delivery.

“We used to wait for help now we’re helping others,” he says, raising his voice above the steady churn of the machines. Their facility doubles as a collection point where other youth sell BSF larvae to the group at KES 180 per kilogram, turning waste management into a continuous cycle of income and opportunity.

Standing nearby, Luciano, an EKYAN Training-of-Trainers (ToT) mentor who has worked closely with the group, reflects on their growth. “This group has shown how youth innovation can reshape local economies,” he says. “They’ve turned what was once just a small fish-feed idea into a fully functioning enterprise that trains and inspires others.”

The group’s model is now expanding to include solar-dried vegetables and a demonstration garden that showcases how aquaculture, feed production, and crop farming can reinforce one another. Their site has also become a learning hub, hosting students from Masinde Muliro University for internships and attachments. Through this partnership, young researchers and entrepreneurs gain practical exposure to circular-economy models in action learning directly from peers who are redefining how rural enterprises can grow sustainably.

EKYAN’s role in these stories has worked with young people to connect what they know to what their communities need. What began as simple ideas has grown into enterprises that turn waste into value, create new markets, and inspire others to act.

In regions once defined by scarcity, innovation is now taking root in the form of cleaner environments, reliable incomes, and stronger local economies. These youth-led ventures show that transformation doesn’t always arrive through large investments, but through consistent effort, shared learning, and the confidence to begin where you are.