Kendi Muthomi: A Seed Does Not Become a Tree Overnight

Some mornings I wake up buried in research on pests, food systems, and farmers’ lives. Other mornings I wake up with a question that refuses to leave me: What happens after this PhD?

Because it is not just about finishing well, it is about what I build next. Policy? Government? Business? And more than anything, it is about returning home to reimagine agriculture, not as back-breaking survival work, but as a space of dignity and wealth. A space where farmers stop losing value along the chain, and start building it.”

Here is a fun fact about me. I have I have lived in two Americas and learned invaluable lessons: In Costa Rica, people had little, but they shared everything: food, land, tradition, community. In the United States, there is structure and opportunity-if you can push through the system, doors open wide. Both worlds taught me this: Africa is not short on talent or ideas. We are short on systems strong enough to let those ideas flourish. That conviction burns in me-to build the institutions, businesses, and opportunities that our people deserve.

My name is Kendi Muthomi, born in Nanyuki, Kenya. My clearest childhood memory is watching farmers, faces tired from the sun, laboring hard and earning little. I remember the frustration in their eyes when harvests failed or markets collapsed. That memory followed me. It is why I chose agriculture, not just for the science, but because food systems decide dignity, livelihoods, and futures. I want young people to look at agriculture and see not desperation, but possibility. We are the generation rewriting that story.

Parenthood changed me early. I had my child when I was not ready, and suddenly, life demanded I grow up faster than I thought I could. It was not easy-but it gave me resilience, discipline, and the courage to focus on what truly matters.

If I could speak to my younger self, I would say: Stop doubting your story. For so long, I thought being Kenyan, being African, being a woman in science, being Black, and being from a rural background meant I had to work twice as hard just to belong. I thought success meant leaving all that behind. Now I know: those are not my limits-they are my roots. They are the very foundation of the work I am meant to do.

My values are clear: Integrity, because shaky ground cannot hold real dreams. Courage, because I walk paths no one has mapped. Community, because what I build only matters if it lifts others too.

But I still carry rocks. The heaviest one is the need to prove myself-to myself, to others, to the world. That drive has taken me far, but it is exhausting. Another is the weight of wanting to fix everything at once: food systems, women’s opportunities, youth futures. I am learning to let go, to remember that change comes piece by piece, seed by seed.

Because the truth is this: a seed does not become a tree overnight.

But every day you tend it, you move closer-to fruit, to shade, to life.

May the day break!