Agripsych Beam Ltd is a Kenyan Healthtech company that uses mobile technology to enhance access to mental health services for smallholder farmers affected by climate change. Our focus at AgriPsych Beam Ltd is to ensure that women smallholder farmers have a mental wellbeing safety net after crop or l
AgriPsych Beam Ltd logo
Agripsych Beam Ltd is a Kenyan Healthtech company that uses mobile technology to enhance access to mental health services for smallholder farmers affected by climate change. Our focus at AgriPsych Beam Ltd is to ensure that women smallholder farmers have a mental wellbeing safety net after crop or livestock loss or devastation of their agriculture enterprise as a result of climate change.
In many cases, climate adaptation efforts focus on directly on modifications to enterprises/businesses. Smallholder farmers are, for example, taught how to plant climate resilient crops, obtain crop insurance, or find other livelihood alternatives. Interventions rarely centre on farmers and their wellbeing, despite the fact the health of smallholder farmers is essential for businesses to thrive. Agripsych Beam Ltd focuses directly on the psychological wellbeing of entrepreneurs and smallholder farmers.
Target population
We target women smallholder farmers who are predisposed to mental health conditions, such as depression, anxiety and trauma related disorders among other mental illnesses.
Partners
We work directly with farmers and also engage with organizations that work with smallholder farmers to provide products and services such as climate smart resilient inputs.
Our team
This programme is led by Dr. Mercy Wawira Njeru,a clinical psychologist. She founded this programme to address the unmet need for mental health services for farming populations facing climate change-related mental health challenges in Kenya.
Her roles in the mental health field include:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360633900_The_Effects_of_Climate_Change_on_the_Mental_Health_of_Smallholder_Crop_Farmers_in_Embu_and_Meru_Counties_of_Kenya?_tp=eyJjb250ZXh0Ijp7ImZpcnN0UGFnZSI6InByb2ZpbGUiLCJwYWdlIjoicHJvZmlsZSJ9fQ
The Coping Mechanisms Utilized by Smallholder Crop Farmers to Cope with the Effects of Climate Change and Mental Illnesses in Embu and Meru Counties of Kenya (Pers.Comm).
Climate change-induced stress can cause anxiety, depression, trauma, aggression, antisocial behavior, dissociation & substance use (APA, 2021). Yazd et al. (2019) state farming is a stressful occupation; climate change amplifies this stress. Yet more than 80% of the world’s food is produced by smallholder farmers who do not have access to mental health services.
Kenya experiences widespread and visible climate change impacts, which impacts farmers’ mental health. One study from Eastern Kenya, for instance, indicates a 35.2% prevalence rate of mental health issues among smallholder farmers; 67% of the study participants were women farmers (Njeru, 2022).
Firsthand conversations with women smallholder farmers highlight the negative effects of climate change on their livelihood. Problems reported include:
Women smallholder farmers report that their physical and psychological health has been negatively affected by climate changes. Problems reported include:
The current mental health practitioner-to-patient ratio in sub-Saharan Africa is 1.4 mental health workers per 100,000 people. African countries have not been able to meet the mental health needs of their communities.
WHO estimates Kenya allocates about 0.05% of its health budget to mental health, centralising about 70% of these resources in its capital city, Nairobi. This leaves few services available to rural, low-income communities.
Therefore, smallholder farmers living in these rural communities are left without access to affordable mental healthcare services.
The above led to Agripsych Beam Limited to fill the gap in mental health services for these smallholder farmers, beginning in 2020.
Our goal is to provide access to affordable or free mental healthcare services to women smallholder farmers. Below are examples of activities we engage in:
A visit to one of the communities to find out the level of awareness of mental health with farmers at Embu
Focus group discussion at Embu with a group of small holder farmers group
Key informant from Embu Community
Individual and group therapy
We provide individual and group therapy to women smallholder farmers to help them with mental health challenges caused by climate change.
Pre-recorded therapy calls
We collaborate with a local telecommunication company to send pre-recorded and pre-paid therapy calls to smallholder farmers every week. Our goal is to make affordable/ free mental health services accessible to smallholder farmers. We plan to reach millions of smallholder farmers in Kenya with this service in the coming years.
Training of paratherapists
Paratherapists/ community-based therapists are the first people to interact with smallholder farmers in rural areas in the Embu Community. We therefore train community health champions to identify mental health issues for appropriate referral and management.
Contact Information
AgriPsych Beam Ltd
Email Address: mercy@agripsychbeam.com
Tel: + 254 700 513 580.
Physical Address: Mwanzi Road Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya.
