TRAINING ON HORTICULTURAL CROPS & GREEN HOUSE FARMING

Photo credit: Sapientia

When: Saturday 22nd June 2013

Venue: Westlands Madonna House Room 305

Organizers: Farm and Community Technologies Ltd (F.a.C.T Ltd)

Horticulture is one of the most profitable type of farming enterprises in Kenya. Many people have ventured into production and marketing of horticultural crops and have experienced good returns. Yet some have faced challenges and do not realize the full benefits. This training targets persons interested in investing successfully in small to medium scale horticultural enterprises in Kenya. This is an intensive one day course and will cover what you need to know and do to be a successful investor in production and marketing of the following crops:

1. Specialty and high value vegetables (capsicum, tomato, export beans)
2. Fruits and nuts (passion, banana, mango, avocado, melon, strawberry, macadamia)
3. Herbs and spices (mint, marjoram, thyme, sage)
4. Summer flowers
5. Greenhouse management

After the training you will know:
1. What to consider when choosing a suitable horticultural enterprise
2. The unique requirements for producing and marketing various crop types

•  Seed and planting materials (sourcing/ quality/
•  Pests management (affordable, environment friendly)
•  Post-harvest issues (grading, packing, storage, transport, cold chain,
• Water and plant nutrition management (cost saving technologies)

3. Infrastructure requirements for horticulture
4. Quality standards for various products and how to meet them
5. Trends and emerging opportunities in horticulture for various regions in Kenya
6. Opportunities for integrating horticulture into other farm enterprises, e.g. beekeeping, dairy, poultry, etc


For more information on the same, contact:

Farm and Community Technologies Ltd (F.a.C.T Ltd)
Tel: 0706 624 605
Email: infofact@elewa.org
website:http://www.fact.elewa/

Wanted: Interns to cover the Eastern Africa Farmers Innovations Fair (EAFIF)

Deadline: 26th May 2013

This is an internship position for 12 Amharic speakers to cover the event at the EAFIF which will be hosted at KARI Kabete Grounds on 28th and 29th May 2012. The event brings together selected farmer innovators from Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. 50 farmer innovators will be exhibiting incredible low-tech innovations that they have created. 

The aim of the fair is to create a platform for farmers to showcase how simple innovations are a game changer to African agricultural development.

EAFIF is hosted by Prolinnova Kenya network and co-hosted by Agri-ProFocus Kenya, KARI, IIRR and other partners. For more information on the event, please visit; http://aisa2013.wikispaces.com/farmer+fair.

Interns' Requirements and responsibilities

The ideal interns should;

·  Be fluent in both Amharic and/or Oromiya

·   Be fluent in English and/or Kiswahili

·  Have a basic understanding of agriculture, Natural Resources management, livestock      production, rural community development etc

·  Be available on the 3 days mentioned above

·  Be willing to engage as translators

 

EAFIF will offer a modest allowance to the selected interns.
If you are the right candidate, please send a one page expression of interest to: prolinnovakenya@gmail.com

Mending the broken link: Agriculture and Health Nexus

For the Chicago Council Global Food Security Symposium 2013

One of the panelist: Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro,

“Finally! Finally! Finally! ” Cries a woman. “Nutrition is now part of Food security discussions “ She continues. 

Later on we come to discover she is no other than Prof Ruth Oniang one of the panelist at the Agriculture and health nexus discussion panel at the Chicago Council Global Food security symposium 2013 and a founding CEO of Rural outreach Africa and African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development; . Other panelists included:

Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, the co-director of the Program in Cardiovascular Epidemiology and associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School; and associate professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. He also doubled as the moderator.

Dr. Subbanna Ayyappan, secretary, Department of Agricultural Research and Education, Government of India; director general, The Indian Council of Agricultural Research

Dr. Howard-Yana Shapiro, chief agricultural officer, Mars, Inc.; senior fellow, plant sciences, University of California, Davis; distinguished fellow, World Agroforestry Centre

How many times has the thought of nutrition crossed your mind while enjoying that sumptuous meal over dinner, lunch or breakfast? Have you ever thought of where you would get those vitamins you badly need if the smallholders farmers in the world went on a strike say for a day, or for a week? 

These are just some of the many questions that arose in the on the Agriculture and the Health nexus discussion whose aim was to provide new thinking on how current agricultural activities could interplay with health and nutrition objectives.

Earlier on, Rajiv shah, the USAID administrator in his address noted that to end hunger effectively, people need to work from farm to market to table. High nutrient levels are needed at all these stages the produce passes be it in production, processing and finally consumption. This brings to fore the interrelatedness of food security and nutrition security. There cannot exist one without the other.

Sharing her experiences working amongst rural women in Kenya, Prof Ruth noted that if we have to build a solid foundation on nutrition security, then we need to empower women as they are the majority of smallholder farmers and hence determine what is consumed. Being decision makers ,its becomes important for them to know that having or growing  food is not enough rather focus should be on growing and consumption of  nutrient rich food. She pointed out critical issues ailing nutrition security the likes of gender mainstreaming, lack of funding, food insecurity at the household level and a case of aging agricultural scientists with no young people to replaced. She feared for Africa’s case being like Guatemala‘s where for every one hundred agricultural scientists they had, only eight are left. Tackling these setbacks could possibly set Africa as the global food basket in the near future.

“Africa might be looking like this abandoned child but she might feed the whole world in the near future” she optimistically stated

Dr. Mozaffarian emphasized that as we align ourselves in the nutritional security thinking, we need to keep in mind the core goals of nutrition, which are reducing malnutrition and under nutrition. Across the globe, approximately 2 billion people lack access to nutrients needed for their bodies to healthy. Every five minutes a child dies from hunger related diseases.

“We need to have a global view of health from utero to the elderly” emphasized Dr. Mozaffarian

On the other hand, Dr Shapiro stressed on the importance of knowledge sharing. He called out to private organizations to make nutrition segments of plant genes public so crops can be improved through research leading to better and nutrient full varieties.

“It was right to go after agricultural productivity early on, but now have to shift from calories to nutrient-dense foods” he insisted.

Dr Ayyappan shared his insights on dietary changes and the resultant ailments in India. He shared his views of encouraging gardening in both schools and at homes as a way of promoting food security and hence subsequently improving nutrition. 

Summing up the discussion, Dr Shapiro acknowledged his shock at the optimism expressed at the symposium and stated that feeding the world is indeed a huge challenge.

Do you think so?

  PS: Short summary of tweets for The Agriculture and the Health Nexus Discussion

Young Agrirevolutionary:Turning a hobby to a profitable business

The tomato seedlings

Growing vegetables has been a hobby for many and one Andrew Kyuvi is no exception. For as long as he can remember he loved practicing it at his parents’ backyard with Kales (Sukuma Wiki) being his comfort zone as far as family consumption is concerned. Putting the hobby to commercial practice was his weakest part. 

He happened to attend a motivating seminar at a local church where the speaker talked of converting liabilities to assets. After considerable thinking, he decided to take the challenge and act on the available idle land and his free time after office hours.

He settled on organic farming with tomato growing for the start after acquiring the most essential tools:-

·         3000 Ltr water tank (Ksh 20,000.00)

·         1200 Mtr Drip irrigation water pipes (Ksh 15,000.00)

·         Assorted seeds (Ksh 7,000.00)

·         Land preparation and consultancy (Ksh 15,000.00)

The benefits of Tomatoes

Tomato is a known source for vitamin A, C and minerals Iron, Calcium, phosphorus and carbohydrates. The fruit has multiple medicinal values as a gentle stimulant for kidneys, washing off toxins that contaminate the body system. Men can consume raw tomatoes for prevention of prostate cancer. A single tomato tree grown in good fertile soil can bear more fruits than an average family can eat in 3 months

Factors to consider

Growing tomatoes has a lot to do with liking what someone does just as the seed hit the ground. But, the rest has to do with good seeds, plenty of well oxygenated water, and love for both the plants and the job.

“We have many varieties of hybrid tomato seeds in the market and making the selection determines a lot on the output” he advices.

 It’s worth the while for potential farmers to always remember that “Cheap is expensive” when making the selection. Professionalism is very vital at this stage even if it means paying for consultation. They should avoid cheap varieties for they tend to be less resistance to most of the tomato farming challenges.

Other factors to consider when choosing a variety are the market demand and the shelf life. Cal-J is one of the tomato varieties preferred by farmers because of its high market demand and ability to stay for up to 14 days after harvest before rotting.

It’s important to note that tomatoes prefer well drained soils, good amount of calcium and potassium and organic matter with a pH of between 5 and 7.5. They also prefer warm temperatures especially when ripening as well as reduced disease and pest infestation. 

The water tank

All was set to go. He used the open space farming, planted the seeds and watered them at least after every two days and once a week with some organic liquid fertilizer. Within three weeks, they were ready for transplanting. He made sure the soil was well attended to by use of chicken organic waste as manure. No major challenges like pests and diseases attacked his crops which he attributed to the fact that within the locality there were no similar crops hence the absence of both airborne pests and diseases. More so, he gave Organic Weed Control a try where he came to realize that crops like Dhania are able to control insects before they fully attack your cops. In addition, cover crops help a great deal in improving soil structure. This in the long run is advantageous compared to chemical fertilizers.

New Information gap

From his research on the internet, he learnt that the organic farming area needs to be kept free from all types of pesticides and maintaining the soil healthy by using your own compost as fertilizer is the easiest way to do it. When you don’t put lots of fertilizers into the soil, your plants grow as they should and not at hyper speeds which in turn keeps off insects as less nitrogen is released. Healthy soil encourages the development of healthy plants which can withstand the minor damages of pests if they do occur.

“Avoid accumulating large piles of mulch around the area by spreading it evenly around the plants and vegetables as too much mulch retains lots of water which in turn attracts insects and pests to the area” he advises

The tomato plant

After about 3 months the crop is ready for harvesting.Tomatoes have a ready market in Kenya. According to Kyuvi, wholesalers market prefers non greenhouse products which he believes it’s due to the longer shelf life. The best price to the farmer spans about a week after the rains fall and tomatoes grown by irrigation tend to dry when rained on. Wholesalers come for the crop from the source unlike some other crops where you have to look for market vigorously and not forgetting the profits which are quite encouraging.

Record keeping is also vital for modern farming. This helps correct any wrong timing for planting, harvesting and helps the farmer calculate his profits or losses.

To be a good farmer, one needs to regularly update himself/herself with new information on farming practices. Kyuvi does this by researching on the internet, seeking consultants’ advice and attending the annual Nairobi Trade Fair with a target in mind of what he wishes to learn from fellow farmers. After attending the last year’s fair, he has decided of expanding the crops variety to include cabbages, Dhania, and onions and keeping rabbits in the farms.

And with each dawn his spirit gets awakened as he finds farming quite an interesting activity. He sees no reason why the youths should not be part of the new global revolution that is farming. I couldn’t agree no more!

 Or do you personally see any?

Overcoming the twin challenges of youth unemployment and food insecurity: what role for agricultural employment?

Blog post by  Dr. Jennifer Leavy  a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.

Conducting greenhouses checks in Mombasa :Photo Courtesy Emmie

 In the contemporary context of profound and significant global change, youth unemployment levels have hit historic highs (ILO, 2012a,b,c; OECD, 2012)[1], and despite improved undernourishment estimates in the two decades to 2007, one in eight people suffered chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012 - one in four in sub-Saharan Africa - according to the recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of food insecurity and hunger in the world  report (2012).

Add to the twin challenges of youth unemployment and hunger and food insecurity, an apparent ageing of the farm population – the average age of farmers is now in the range of late-50s to early 60s across the globe from The United States to Europe, to Africa, to Australia.On the surface the answer seems simple enough: encourage young people to farm and we solve three ‘problems’ in one fell swoop.

Agriculture will provide under- and un-employed young people with employment and income, this in turn will provide the food we need via increased production, and ensures farming is passed from one generation to the next. This message adds yet another  framing of young people as the saviours of undernutrition to the many other framings and narratives that place young people in the role of saviours (of the agriculture sector) or ‘sinners’ (young people are too lazy for agriculture, idle, unemployed)[2].

It seems obvious – if more than a little instrumentalist in approach. Of course the answer is not as simple as that.

Strong messages emerging from primary research with young people in rural areas under the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project – a four-year study across ten developing countries - and from the Future Agricultures Consortium  youth theme, focusing on young people and agricultural policy processes in sub-Saharan Africa, shed light on young people’s attitudes towards agriculture and the likelihood of being able to address food security concerns via engagement of young people with the sector.  Some of these attitudes include:

• Most young people have no interest in agriculture, not within their own visions for their future. This is often echoed by their parents. By agriculture, people invariably think of farming: back-breaking work, low input, 365 days a year for little or low return. Those who do see a future for themselves in farming believe it needs to be ‘smarter’, more productive and more reliable. More modern?

• Agriculture is not considered to be delivering the types of lifestyles and status that young people desire and expect. These are important dimensions of the attractiveness, or otherwise, of agriculture (invariably farming) as an occupation. Agriculture is not considered able to deliver via incomes and working conditions the kinds of lifestyles young people need, expect and desire in the 21^st century, lifestyles that are ever more visible thanks to revolutionary advances in communications technology that is accessible to (almost) all, even people living in the most remote rural areas. In this respect, agriculture is regarded as a poor person’s activity, going beyond living standards to people’s sense of pride and self-respect. These are important dimensions of wellbeing[3] and take us beyond narrow, one-dimensional conceptions of what it means to be poor, marginalised and disadvantaged. If agriculture is not able to deliver either the desired living standards or the prospects for upward mobility, then the likelihood of attracting young people into or retaining them in the sector is low.

• Education is a double-edged sword. Higher education levels overall mean that young people are being educated kinds of agriculture on offer. With higher levels of education they seek jobs with higher skill levels than those of the smallholder farming activities that most face. But higher unemployment levels, especially among the youth, suggest that work and education are failing as key routes by which people move out of poverty, and as crucial mechanisms linking economic growth to poverty reduction. More children than ever go to school, but what they learn appears to be far removed from the skills needed in the 21^st century (UNESCO, 2012; World Bank, 2012). This is as much true for agriculture sector skills as any other.

• Agriculture is often seen as a last resort, something you do if you fail: in school,  as migrants in town or abroad, in non-farm businesses. Or may not even be an option at all – pressure on resources, especially land scarcity, pose serious barriers to entry for young people. This is highlighted sharply by Getnet Tadele and Asrat Ayalew Gella’s work in Ethiopia, and is not peculiar to this setting. This is a recurring theme across the ten countries in the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project. An apparent sense of insecurity around farming, related to unpredictable climate variability, volatile food prices, rising costs, further acts as a deterrent.

These emergent findings suggest policymakers need to think beyond the conception of (young) people as units of labour to be placed in jobs. To engage and empower young people in agriculture, the sector needs to be able to address young people’s aspirations and their expectations, and offer potential for social mobility. Using the language of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and FAO, rural employment needs to be ‘decent work’[4] – but as the importance to people of self-respect and status highlights, it needs also to address broader conceptions of human wellbeing. Farming needs a change of image to get over entrenched, though not unfounded, beliefs that it involves dirty, laborious work at low skill levels for low returns. And we need to reassess what we mean by ‘farmer’ in the 21^st century. The broader agri-food framing called for by the Future Agricultures Consortium can go some way towards this, potentially recasting agriculture as an aspirational career choice by highlighting opportunities throughout the industry.

Re-blogged from the Global Food for Thought website. Find the link to the original article HERE  

 

Recap of My Blogging Journey

Dear Readers

 
Thank You Photo:Courtesy Navjot Sharma

Its been almost 17 months since i created this blog and set out on a course to bridge the information gap surrounding agriculture, research and use of new and upcoming ICTs focusing on agriculture. Many a things , both nice and challenging have occured which has only made this blogging journey worth continuing. Your presence as evidenced by everyday s traffic rise, comments, and constant sharing of the posts in other social media channels has contributed to making the blogging journey more of a success. I owe you big time for this.


Well, I have received a couple of emails from readers suggesting some of the topics they would love to see featured on this blog. Some of them happen to be students in colleges seeking out companies where they could get placements for their internships,others on agricultural policies, new and applicable technologies in the field of agriculture and still more on step by step details on poultry keeping, urban and peri urban farming amongst many others. Well the list is endless and i am more than happy to offer a hand for each and every one of my readers in their area of interest.

In the coming weeks, i will be aggregating information concerning the same.

Well stay put as we set the ball rolling!

PS: Of late i have been involved in too much of social media reporting and hence once in a while i will be posting pieces on social media

Alternative ways to food production: The right to food approach

 Hello readers!

 My latest piece for the Digital Development debates  February 2013 edition under the right to food focuses on alternative ways to food security, hunger and food production with special focus on  urban farming. Check it out! 
 

 Greenhouses in the Backyard
Digital Development Debates
February 2013 Hunger  Edition
Emmie Kio


Urban farming in Kenya has moved beyond just being a poor man's profession. Can it even provide a solution to looming food insecurity?

On a stroll through Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, one's eyes are drawn to a myriad of agricultural activities taking place. From a distance, greenhouses seem to sprout from any available piece of land and backyards. And that is certainly not all: As the greenhouses disappear, backyard vegetable farming, rabbit keeping, cattle rearing, fish farming and even pig farming sets in; and tassels of maize grown at roadside farms wave at you as you pass. This is, in a nutshell, what experts have called urban farming or urban agriculture.

According to the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security, urban agriculture refers to the cultivation of plants and raising of animals within and around cities. It may be right inside a city – "intra-urban" – or at the outskirts of a city – "peri-urban". The major crops grown include tomatoes, beans, maize, sweet potatoes, kale (locally known as sukuma wiki), African leafy vegetables, arrowroot, cowpeas and Irish potatoes. The major livestock kept includes cows, goats, sheep, rabbits, pigs and poultry.

Urban agriculture is primarily distinguished from rural agriculture as we know it by the way it operates. It is characterised by labour drawn from the urban population, the use of treated or even untreated waste water for irrigation, and its need to be incorporated in urban policy planning.

A remedy against poverty and hunger
In Kenya, poverty and food insecurity are just two of the many development challenges the government has been trying to eradicate since independence. Urban areas are in no way spared the problems of their rural neighbours, and bear the extra burden of a high cost of living. Rapid population growth in these urban areas, either as a result of urbanization or births, accelerates these issues.

"Urban areas are in no way spared
the problems of their rural neighbours,
and bear the extra burden of a high cost of living."

Take Nairobi, for instance, the capital city, where the annual growth rate is currently 4.1 per cent. This has led to an increase in food insecurity here, especially among low-income earners and informal settlers. And with the population projected to rise to 61 million as of 2030, with a higher percentage in urban areas, new ways of feeding the population need be devised.
Urban agriculture seems to be a viable option, as it can utilize limited land area to yield quality produce. This is because it can incorporate technologies like sack gardening, which uses very minimal land space and water while ensuring maximum produce. Such approaches are particularly important to informal settlements where the available land is quite limited and clean water for irrigation is a scarce commodity.

(Read the Full story here )