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    Re­source cen­ter em­braces tech to trans­form farm­ing

    An in­form­a­tion re­source cen­ter has trans­formed the lives of hun­dreds of farm­ers in the semi arid Laikipia County as­sist­ing them share know­ledge with peers while di­ver­si­fy­ing crop pro­duc­tion to shield them­selves from poor rains.

    The re­source cen­ter has been termed a break­through in the food se­cur­ity re­solve by ex­perts fol­low­ing nu­mer­ous stud­ies that show one of the biggest con­trib­ut­ors to poor and low yields is lack of in­form­a­tion on farm man­age­ment.

    The Arid Land In­form­a­tion Net­work (ALIN) has also poin­ted farm­ers to the right and ready mar­kets even as their peers con­tend with mea­ger earn­ings based on crowded mar­kets. Mem­bers who ac­cess the re­source cen­ter are able to learn about new crops, live­stock breeds, crop hus­bandry and mar­ket­ing.

    The group be­hind the pro­ject is Ng’arua Focal group which boasts of 54 gender bal­anced mem­bers op­er­at­ing within a 40-square kilo­metre area. "We are in­volved in an­imal hus­bandry, fruit farm­ing and busi­ness activ­it­ies where mem­bers sell cer­eal to dis­tant mar­kets. We are also a source of com­munity know­ledge as we are able to ac­cess in­form­a­tion from East Africa through our par­ent net­work," said Charles Mureithi the chair­man of Ng’arua focal group. Five com­puters don the in­form­a­tion cen­ter with one con­nec­ted to GPRS through a local mo­bile tele­phony com­pany. Open soft­ware also avail­able in the re­source cen­ter en­able farm­ers to act­ively up­load and down­load vital farm­ing in­form­a­tion on pas­sion fruits and other crops.

    And to move with chan­ging times most of the local farm­ers in Laikipia have in­ves­ted in api­ar­ies on their farms chiefly to boost pol­lin­a­tion of fruit flowers and for honey pro­duc­tion. "We can­not be sure of bees com­ing from afar to pol­lin­ate our orch­ard. We have to have them on our farms as some fruits like or­anges and man­goes need con­stant at­ten­tion from bees to form," noted Mureithi on whose farm are 10 hive api­ary. The biggest draw­back for the pas­sion fruit farm­ers has been the stem rot dis­ease which has been killing many ma­ture plants, de­mor­al­ising the farm­ers.

    "It would help cut our losses if a per­man­ent solu­tion for the rampant dis­ease is found," said Gatama, who has been farm­ing for years. While to­bacco white flies and leaf beetles may at­tack the crop, they are loc­ally not con­sidered ser­i­ous threats.

    While ele­phants are a per­petual prob­lem in Laikipia, they do not eat pas­sion fruit, though they des­troy the wires and posts for hoist­ing them, ac­cord­ing to the local farm­ers. A local non-gov­ern­mental or­gan­isa­tion Tree is Life Pro­ject has been work­ing closely with the pas­sion fruit farm­ers through train­ing. "Our or­gan­isa­tion trains farm­ers on grow­ing, value ad­di­tion and mar­ket­ing op­por­tun­it­ies avail­able. We are also sens­it­iz­ing farm­ers on the need of in­creas­ing acre­age to boosts re­turns", said George Kamau, the pro­ject's local ex­ten­sion of­ficer.

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