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    By George Munene

    George Mu­turi, a 26-year-old farmer has cut a luc­rat­ive niche for him­self in of­fer­ing in­nov­at­ive or­ganic farm­ing solu­tions through the rear­ing of red­worms, black sol­dier flies and grow­ing azolla. Ven­tures which net him about Sh50,000 a month.

    Lack­ing school fees after com­plet­ing his sec­ond­ary edu­ca­tion, Mu­turi began rear­ing poultry and rab­bits in 2013, he however changed tack in 2015. “Through in­ter­net re­search I found the rear­ing of red­worms to be a novel and more prom­ising busi­ness op­por­tun­ity. ICIPE (In­ter­na­tional Centre for In­sect Physiology and Eco­logy) was en­cour­aging farm­ers to take on the ven­ture by of­fer­ing free worms, from them I got my first batch, start­ing out with an aim to propag­ate the earth­worms as a source of chicken feed,” Mu­turi says.

    However, due to their low pro­duc­tion rates he opted to use them for ver­mi­cul­ture –pro­duc­tion of an af­ford­able or­ganic fer­til­iser called ver­mi­com­post (a product of the de­com­pos­ing ve­get­able or an­imal waste using spe­cies of worms) that he sells to other farm­ers for crop pro­duc­tion. From mak­ing just 100-150 kilo­grams of ver­mi­com­post six years ago the res­id­ent of Lari, Ki­ambu County, now pro­duces two tonnes of ver­mi­com­post monthly for his stand­ing cli­ents. He sells a kilo­gram for Sh50.

    Re­lated News: Red­worm rear­ing prom­ises bet­ter in­come for un­der­gradu­ate

    Re­lated News: Black Sol­dier Fly grower en­list­ing farm­ers to earn in­come

    The worms feed on an­imal ma­nure (he opts for the more avail­able cow dung) as well as dry and wet leaves. For his pro­duc­tion of two tonnes, he uses 200-300kg of earth­worms and 2.5 tonnes of raw ma­ter­ial. Whilst he is able to source ve­get­at­ive ma­ter­ial from his home he has to buy cow dung from neigh­bour­ing farms. This he says, runs his total cost of pro­duc­tion to Sh25/Kg. He rears his worms in a simple shed made out of offcuts and nylon paper. The basic para­met­ers to ob­serve in set­ting up a ver­mi­com­post unit are en­sur­ing it is shaded from dir­ect sun­light; en­sur­ing tem­per­at­ures within the unit do not ex­ceed 35°C or go below 15°C. The mois­ture con­tent level also needs to hover at around 40%. The worms can be fed at one go or in­ter­mit­tently—about once every week and the fer­til­iser is ready for har­vest after 45 days.

    Mu­turi’s new­est pro­ject is the farm­ing of azolla, a water fern that is rich in pro­teins and serves as a sup­ple­ment to feed for chick­ens, ducks, pigs, fish, cattle, sheep, goats and rab­bits. Azzola has been in vogue amongst poultry farm­ers in the know for its high rate of growth in water without dis­pla­cing ex­ist­ing crops and its abil­ity to pro­lif­er­ate without in­or­ganic ni­tro­gen fer­til­isa­tion. “Again, through on­line re­search, I got to read up on the be­ne­fits of azolla as a sup­ple­ment to tra­di­tional chicken feed, I got the seeds from one of the pi­on­eer­ing farm­ers in its growth in Nairobi, ex­plains George. Mu­turi propag­ates his azolla in a foot deep 1.5M*7.5M ar­ti­fi­cial pond. The azolla is ready for har­vest after just three weeks. Every three days one col­lects up to 10-15 kilo­grams. One kilo­gram of azolla is fit to provide suf­fi­cient di­et­ary pro­tein for up to 50 chick­ens. Most of his azolla is con­sumed by his chicken, though he sells 10-20 kilo­grams of it at Sh1000 per kilo­gram every month to other farm­ers.

    Re­lated News: How to set a simple ver­mi­cul­ture sys­tem for your kit­chen garden

    He also rears black sol­dier flies in a setup that farms 100 kilo­grams every two weeks—most of which he feeds to his chicken and pigs. He sells 15 kg of BSF lar­vae at Sh2000 per kg every month to starter farm­ers.

    George Mu­turi: 0717411668

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    By George Munene

    “From an acre of farmland applying the right agronomic practices, certified seeds should harvest a minimum of eighty 50kg bags and can yield up to 200 bags,” says Enoch Rugut an extension officer at Egerton University’s potato multiplication center.

    Rugut explains that using seeds disseminated between farmers as planting material you are more likely to harvest 50 bags and will be more than lucky to get 80 bags from your shamba.

    Certified seeds are free of common potato diseases that are soil-borne such as bacterial wilt and those spread by seeds like soft rot.

     

    The country's potato seed pro­duc­tion stands at just 6,700 tonnes against a yearly de­mand of 30,000 tonnes, mak­ing most farm­ers opt to re­cycle the pre­vi­ous year’s har­vest as seed. In an ef­fort to avail more cer­ti­fied potato seeds to farm­ers, the Na­tional Potato Coun­cil of Kenya is in­creas­ing potato mul­ti­plic­a­tion cen­ters across the coun­try.

    These will in­clude cen­ters in Nairobi, Na­k­uru and Meru of­fer­ing pop­u­lar seed vari­et­ies such as Shangi, Unica, Wanjiku, Markies among oth­ers.

    Re­lated News: Kibiri­chia farmer lifts potato earn­ings 50% with stor­age and off-sea­son sales

    Re­lated News: Proper plant­ing for over 10 tonnes from acre of sweet pota­toes

    To get peak yields, Enoch ex­plains, a farmer needs to start off by sourcing for the right seeds. The highest classed seeds are re­ferred to as breed­ers or gen­er­a­tion 0; these achieve up to 90 per cent of ideal yields but their cost is ex­or­bit­ant for most farm­ers. “We mostly mul­tiply Cer­ti­fied 1(C1) seeds as they are both high yield­ing (60-50 per cent) and are still af­ford­able for most farm­ers,” he says. Their price ranges from Sh54-80 per kilo­gram of seed.

    Farm­ers also need a timetable start­ing from plant­ing, to earth­ing up—cov­er­ing pota­toes up to a foot high done after three weeks, side-dress­ing with fer­til­izer, and second earth­ing up done three weeks after the first.

    The per-acre cost of pro­duc­tion should av­er­age Sh80,00 for farm­ers and Sh150,000 for seed pro­du­cers.

    Farm­ers wish­ing to be­come seed pro­du­cers need to have their farms and seed source checked and li­censed to be free of pests and dis­eases then pay a Sh100,000 cer­ti­fic­a­tion fee.

    Eger­ton’s Cli­mate and Water Smart Ag­ri­cul­ture Centre is cur­rently selling the Unica potato to farm­ers and is grow­ing Wanjiku and Shangi vari­et­ies. Farm­ers look­ing to get the proper plant­ing and man­age­ment prac­tices to em­ploy to get the most out­put from their farms can also get free train­ing from the Njoro based cen­ter.

    Re­lated News: In­sti­tute pi­on­eers ba­nana paper use in man­aging potato cyst nem­at­odes

    Seed pro­du­cing com­pan­ies: Eger­ton Uni­versity (Na­k­uru-Njoro)-0742934636

                                                    Ag­rico EA (Na­k­uru-Kabarak)-0742844207

                                                    Kisima farm (Meru Timau)-0716968766

                                                   GTIL (Nairobi-Lower Ka­bete)-0722760373

    Na­tional Potato Coun­cil of Kenya:0799739578

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    By George Munene
    Rita Nangira, a mixed farmer at Mureko, Kaka­mega County has im­proved plant growth by over 30 per cent using ef­fect­ive mi­croor­gan­isms (EM) and ef­fect­ive mi­croor­gan­ism ac­tiv­ated solu­tion (EMAS). EM is af­ford­able to farm­ers with one liter of cost­ing just Sh350-375 in agrovets and cap­able of being util­ised on 30 hec­tares of farm­land. EMAS is even cheaper as a liter of EM1 can be mul­ti­plied into 20 liters.
    “I have been using EMAS for six months now after being in­tro­duced to it by a neigh­bor farmer and be­com­ing bet­ter con­vers­ant with its for­mu­la­tion from my own re­search. It has en­hanced the per­form­ance of fer­til­iser I apply while also sup­press­ing soil-borne dis­eases which have al­most halved my ap­plic­a­tion of pesti­cides,” says the 38-year-old who grows hor­ti­cul­tural pro­duce and fruits on her 4.5-acre farm.
    Ef­fect­ive mi­croor­gan­isms tech­no­logy (EM) was de­veloped in Japan by ag­ri­cul­ture sci­ent­ist at the Uni­versity of Ry­ukyus and uses safe and hu­man-friendly mi­croor­gan­isms. It is now in use in over 140 coun­tries in the world to sup­ple­ment grow­ing media with be­ne­fi­cial mi­croor­gan­isms that stim­u­late com­post­ing, sup­press harm­ful mi­crobes and im­prove the re­sponse of fer­til­iser as well as restor­ing the qual­ity of water.

    Re­lated News: Farmer in­creases eggs 60% with homemade azolla plant pro­tein

    Re­lated News: Farm­Biz TV:Biochar or­ganic fer­til­izer gives 50% to 70% yield in­crease
    EM is a mixed-cul­ture solu­tion of ef­fect­ive mi­crobes that works to get nat­ural pro­cesses to func­tion more ef­fect­ively by stim­u­lat­ing bio­lo­gical activ­ity in the soil and plant. EM also serves as a mi­cro­bial or soil in­ocu­lant—ag­ri­cul­tural amend­ments that use mi­crobes to pro­mote plant health. It is yel­low to brown in color with a sweet-sour fer­men­ted smell and has a PH value of 4 and below.
    Ef­fect­ive mi­croor­gan­ism ac­tiv­ated solu­tion (EMAS) is an ac­tiv­ated EM solu­tion for­mu­lated to trig­ger and mul­tiply the be­ne­fi­cial mi­crobes in EM1 which ex­ists in a stag­nant state.. It is in­tu­it­ive—easy to un­der­stand and use as well as able to heal the soil and en­vir­on­ment or­gan­ic­ally.
    “To make EMAS which is an­aer­obic­ally fer­men­ted (without air) I use a clean plastic con­tainer that is tightly covered and stored in a cool dry place away from dir­ect sun­light with an ideal tem­per­at­ure range of 20-35°C. To make one liter of EMASS it is re­com­men­ded you use 90 per cent, 900 mil­li­liters of un­chlor­in­ated water (chlor­in­ated water kills both harm­ful and be­ne­fi­cial bac­teria); five per­cent, 50ml of EM1 (use genu­ine EM1 sourced from re­li­able dis­trib­ut­ors) and an­other five per­cent, 50ml of clean molasses. My EMAS mix­ture is usu­ally fer­men­ted after five days to one week; if tem­per­at­ures are low you will need extra days for it to ‘ripen’. I open the lead to my solu­tion at least once a day to re­lease gas that forms 2-3 days after mix­ing. On day seven once fer­ment­a­tion is com­plete there will be no gas. The mix­ture is usu­ally dark to light brown and gives off a sweet-sour smell with no odor,” ex­plains Rita.

    Re­lated News: Proper plant­ing for over 10 tonnes from acre of sweet pota­toes

    Re­lated News: Yara fer­til­iser pro­gram in­creases maize yield two-fold

    The mi­cro­bial activ­ity in EMAS is higher within the first month and dis­sip­ates gradu­ally after that. EMAS is ap­plied as 10m (one ta­ble­spoon) in one liter of water and is sprayed dir­ectly on leaves once or twice a week. The best time for ap­plic­a­tion is between 5 am-9 am in the morn­ing or in the af­ter­noon between 3 pm-6 pm. This is the ideal spray­ing time plant sto­mata is open­ing up and ready to ab­sorb avail­able mi­crobes. EMAS solu­tion can also be dir­ectly ap­plied to the soil. Mixed in with water at 10ml of EMAS for a liter the mix can also be used as a pro­bi­otic to bol­ster the im­mune sys­tems of an­im­als such as chick­ens, pigs and rab­bits. Once it is mixed with water, EMAS, es­pe­cially if fed to an­im­als should be used within 24 hours to avoid con­tam­in­a­tion.
    The main mi­crobes present in EM1 are lactic acid bac­teria, yeast and pho­to­trophic bac­teria. Lactic acid bac­teria de­com­pose or­ganic mat­ter by fer­ment­a­tion and acts as a bar­rier that keeps off harm­ful mi­crobes by lower­ing PH in­hib­it­ing the growth of patho­gens. Yeast for its part de­com­poses or­ganic mat­ter through fer­ment­a­tion and pro­duces bio­act­ive sub­stances that are con­ver­ted into plant food. Yeast also im­proves the im­mune sys­tems of an­im­als and plants. Pho­to­tropic bac­teria neut­ral­ises pun­gent smell by de­com­pos­ing harm­ful gases such as am­mo­nia and hy­dro­gen sulf­ide chan­ging them into odor­less gases.

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