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| The team gets highlights at the MoA |
Forum for Advisory Services
Kenya (KeFAAS) was privileged to host Capacity needs assessment GFRAS (Global
Forum for Rural Advisory Services) consultants Dr. Alexa Lamm and Dr.Kevan Lamm.
While in the country, they held several consultations with different organizations
who are key players in extension services, among them were MoA, KARLO, KENAFF, WAF
and GIZ. They intended to come up with a global assessment of Rural Advisory
Services needs. At the country level they were to assess the capacity needs of
KeFAAS, identify their progress, challenges encountered to date and also look
at the overall functioning of KeFAAS.
Together with the other
African countries they had visited, they were to consult globally to enable
them identify several areas for the assessment. To achieve this task, the team
had an assessment tool (questionnaire) which they administered to the members
of the County Fora. The tool captured KeFAAS perceptions though being a very
new organization.
They
were also scheduled to meet farmer groups organised by KENAFF in Kimende Kiambu
County. The groups are successfully benefiting from KENAFF advisory and entrepreneurship
services. The county is a popular source of vegetables like sukuma wiki,
cabbages, spinach, carrots to mention, but a few for the lucrative Nairobi
market. Kiambu County relies mostly on agriculture and industries to sustain
its economy, although majority of residents are small-scale farmers. Among the
activities was a potato project whereby KARLO through KENAFF had given the
groups clean potato seeds resistant to diseases and would endure the current season harsh cold
weather.
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| Githuka's Potato plantation and the community man-made forest |
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| Trees planted by the community |
The
farmers had embraced tree planting as a major activity too, this was a project
by DANIDA. The groups had planted trees in their farms and one of the farmers
had offered the community a piece of land to plant trees. Though the trees are
still immature, the community will benefit in future given that trees have numerous economic, social, cultural and
ecological values, as they provide essential goods and services including
timber, poles, fuel-wood, medicine and a variety of non-wood products. In
addition to playing a critical role in supporting the livelihoods of families
and the national economy, forests serve as habitat for flora and fauna and as
water catchment areas.
They
had consultations with the group chair Mr. Peter Githuka and Henry a youth
group chair. Both are successful farmers doing horticulture and have greatly
benefited from KENAFF services. They said that county enjoys a warm climate
with temperatures ranging between 12°C and 18.7°C. The rainfall aggregate for
the county is 1000mm each year. The cool climate makes it a conducive for
farming. June and July rank as the coldest months while January-March and
September-October are the hottest months.
The
chairman reported that farmers take all the initiative positively as they
attended meetings in large numbers. Currently Mr Githuka is successful farmers
and in charge of 25 groups in the community, he feels Agriculture is one of the oldest trade and people need to
eat, thus a guaranteed market per se. However, it is unfortunate that majority
of the foodstuff in our supermarkets are imported yet we are an agricultural
country. With the introduction of formal education, everyone moved to the professional
jobs, leaving behind a very big gap in the agricultural sector. In additional
that is why we have that big deficit in the sector, and he calls upon many to
jump into this sector, which has a huge business potential.
Capacity building interventions have been designed to
respond to the lack of awareness, skills, and competency shortfalls in the
application of innovations and technologies relating to agriculture. Mr.
Githuka through interventions the father of three has been feeding his family
comfortably, with his three cows he has managed adopt the biogas technology and
has put up a eight cubic meter plant. He has embraced this clean
and easy to use cooking fuel and has largely cut the cost of fuel for domestic
consumption.
In addition, he practices
organic farming whereby he uses the bio-slurry instead of fertilizers. Inside
the Bio-gas plant decomposition of the mixture takes place to produce methane
gas and the remaining portion of the mixture is send through the outlet of the
Bio-gas plant which is known as Bio-slurry. This viscous liquid contains 93%
water and 7% percent dry matter (4.5% organic & 2.5 % inorganic). Bio slurry
is a ready-made fertilizer containing every nutrient needed for the plant and
can be directly used in fields to grow crops which is more effective in comparison
to other fertilizers. However, not many farmers are familiar with the
advantages of bio-slurry.
Through this success story by KENAFF farmers and many other
actors in agricultural extension, KeFAAS will provide a framework that gives confidence
to all actors and a clear direction for coordinated service delivery for
sustainable growth and development in the agricultural sector in Kenya.
