Elizabeth Koigi

Elizabeth Koigi was born and raised in Lari, Kenya. She is the second born of three siblings. She is a wife, mother of 2 , a teacher by profession , an entrepreneur and an environmentalist at heart. Growing up in Lari, Kenya which was a peri urban setting she saw firsthand how her mother used to search for land in order for their family to have a good and healthy meal. Her mother used to rent out spaces where she could farm. Some regions were far and some were near. She always wondered why her mother used to search for land for growing food yet food could be bought from the grocery store. As she grew up, she came to realize that her mother was looking for a way to lessen family expenses when it came to food and that the food they were consuming, the mother wanted them to be organically grown.
She often wondered whether there were solutions where instead of searching for land in other areas, the little space that urban dwellers have, could be converted into a garden. During her high school years , she came across the concept of hydroponic gardening where people could use nutrient solution to grow their own food without soil, an idea that could fit what she was looking for. After her undergraduate studies in 2015, she started working on a hydroponic garden where she was testing out hydroponic fodder and hydroponic gardening systems for vegetables. The hydroponic fodder idea worked well while the vegetable one fell through. The systems was expensive to maintain and consistently getting the nutrient solution was an issue.
After the failure of the hydroponic gardening systems, she came the concept of using containers, converting barrels into gardens and using raised beds. An idea that she tried in 2018. All the gardening systems were made of plastic and they were bulky. Environmentalists were on her neck saying that she was reintroducing plastics into the environment, even though she was recycling them.
Using the environmentalists insights, she had to search for a way where she could set up kitchen gardens using eco friendly materials. She came across felt fabric that is eco friendly and biodegradable. Using the fabric she has managed to create gardening systems that are ecofriendly, that can easily fit any space and that access to vegetables which was her primary goal for urban dwellers is now becoming a dream come true.
Through her work, she has managed to reach over 1000 people who have purchased her products, some have been trained on setting up kitchen gardens. She has managed to fundraise 23,000USD that enabled her to set up a pilot, launch her website, buy raw materials and consistently marketed her products.