Fintrac Kenyan Partner a Finalist in BBC Environmental Competition

The Real IPM Company, a Fintrac partner under the USAID-funded Horticultural Development Center (HDC) program in Kenya, was among 12 finalists vying for a $20,000 prize in the “The World Challenge,” a global search to find entrepreneurs making a positive impact on the environment and in communities.

Real IPM, headed by Louise Labuschange and Henry Wainwright, mass produces natural predators to control pests in an effort to decrease dependency on harmful insecticides. The company has had great success in fighting pests in Kenya’s flower industry and they hope to expand to other industries.

“If we won the money we’d like to extend the range of beneficial insects that we actually produce commercially,” Labuschange said on a short BBC film on the competition’s Web site. “We’d also like to set up a proper training room here so that people can come from overseas and learn how to mass rear bugs here.”

The Real IPM film, called “Bugs Money,” was shown on the BBC World channel on September 24. Short versions of the finalists’ profiles can be viewed on the competition’s Web site, http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk . Newsweek, a partner in the project will also profile the finalists.