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    Bomet gradu­ate trans­form­ing ag­ri­cul­ture through tech­no­lo­gical in­nov­a­tion

    mutaiIn many parts of Kenya, the youth are trans­form­ing their com­munit­ies through use of mod­ern tech­no­logy. From the rural areas to the urban cen­ters, the story is the same. The coun­try’s di­gital gen­er­a­tion is play­ing a big role in spur­ring de­vel­op­ment in the coun­try.

    With use of new tech­no­logy, com­munit­ies are be­gin­ning to enjoy newly found wealth in the ag­ri­cul­tural sec­tor which has be­ne­fit­ted many small­holder farm­ers.

    In Bomet County, it is not the beau­ti­ful scenery with lush green tea farms but Robert Mutai’s suc­cess farm­ing story that is at­tract­ive.  Mutai is a young farmer who is using mod­ern tech­no­logy to trans­form farm­ing in his local com­munity. Using in­nov­at­ive ag­ri­cul­tural tech­niques; he is now one of the most en­ter­pris­ing farm­ers in his area.

    Re­lated News: Bomet farmer earn­ing over half a mil­lion shil­lings monthly from dairy farm­ing

    “The sort of farm­ing I prac­tice is kind of mixed; I grow pota­toes, cab­bages, beans, maize and onions” said Mutai.

    Des­pite hav­ing a de­gree in Crim­in­o­logy and Crim­inal Justice, he de­cided to ven­ture into farm­ing. Ini­tially, this did not go down well with his par­ents.

    “My par­ents did not want me to in­volve my­self in dirty work like farm­ing, but the way I see it and mak­ing money out of it, it isn’t dirty ac­tu­ally, so I de­cided not to fol­low my ca­reer but rather di­vert it to farm­ing which is my pas­sion” says Mutai. But With time he says his par­ents have star­ted to ap­pre­ci­ate his ef­forts and have star­ted of­fer­ing some as­sist­ance.

    His secret to get­ting max­imum profit is through mixed farm­ing. Pota­toes are one of the crops he is cul­tiv­at­ing in his farm.

    “Potato farm­ing is prof­it­able be­cause in my half an acre of land, I am as­sured of 30 bags with one 50 kg bag of fetch­ing me between 4,000 to 5,000 shil­lings de­pend­ing on the mar­ket de­mand.”

    Mutai has to grapple with some chal­lenges in­clud­ing in­fest­a­tion by bac­terial wilt dis­ease which he notes has no chem­ical cure hence some­times leads to loss of ex­pec­ted yields.

    READ ALSO: Vil­lage In­dus­trial Power of­fer­ing in­nov­at­ive clean en­ergy for rural farm­ers

    “When grow­ing my pota­toes, I start with primary cul­tiv­a­tion then sec­ond­ary fol­lowed by ter­tiary cul­tiv­a­tion then the farm is ready for plant­ing”

    Mutai uses 100 kg of fer­til­izer and 10 bags of potato seeds on 1 acre of land.

    There are also a vari­ety of beans which are under cul­tiv­a­tion in his land. He plants beans after har­vest­ing pota­toes be­cause ac­cord­ing to him at that time the land is still smooth and there are no weeds. He also re­quires beans to fix ni­tro­gen in the soil for free.

    Mutai also saw an op­por­tun­ity in plant­ing sorghum and mil­let which he ac­know­ledges to be in­ad­equate in the mar­ket mean­ing they earn more in­come due to high de­mand. He is as­sured of 600 kg of mil­let and 700 kg of sorghum per plant­ing sea­son.

    READ ALSO: Co­oper­at­ive So­ci­ety helps farm­ers own land and Man­age Ag­ribusi­ness

    Being able to un­der­stand the mar­ket helps the farmer reaps profits. He is work­ing with other youth in his area and other parts like Mur­ang’a where he is able to reach them using his mo­bile phone.

    “Farm­ing is meant for the youth be­cause they are stronger, and they can apply use of mod­ern tech­no­logy eas­ily to im­prove pro­duc­tion” adds Mutai. The 27 year old is now a shin­ing light in his local vil­lage and his age mates are fol­low­ing in his foot­steps.

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