Smart farms

: 25 October 2022; Hits: 1526

Farmers look to detergent to combat deadly fusarium wilt

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Farmers have turned to laundry detergents in taming deadly fusarium wilt disease that affects potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, and their vegetable relatives.

Patrick Njenga, a Kiambu County Irish potato farmer, has successfully used the Jik detergent to clear fusarium wilt from his three quarter an acre after registering losses after a growing season.

“I learnt from other farmers who had experimented and found that Jik had helped them in eliminating the wilting infection, which ‘terrorises’ crops to death after setting in,” he said.

Fusarium wilt is a fungal disease that causes withering in crops in the solanaceae family. Some crops in this family include tomatoes, sweet and Irish potatoes, pepper, black night shade, among others.

This severe infection does not have an approved agrochemical remedy other than sustained field rotation of non-susceptible crops from other families.

After identifying premature drying or withering, Njoroge uprooted the affected plants and discarded them away from the farm to stop further spread.

He took a capful Jik and added it to a cup of water before pouring it into the hole of the ‘casualty’. Because the disinfectant is for external use only, the farmer banked of leeching to drain the chemical after heavy rains.

“After the application, the field remained free until the end of the season. With the heavy rains falling during rotation and land resting time, the chemical elements in the soil may have disintegrated or been leeched to deep soil layers,” he said.

Jik is corrosive laundry detergent that causes skin scorching when used without dilution. Other farmers are reportedly using other germ-killing disinfectants like Dettol.

The following season Kimende Village farmer grew broccoli and cauli flower in that piece of land.

“In ensuring that the farm is safe for growing the Irish potatoes again, he sought the help of crop nutritionist, who tested the soil.

The Irish potatoes are ready for harvesting, and the farmer confirms that there were no cases of fusarium wilt.

Inasmuch as the disinfectants may be helping in taming the infection, Amiran Kenya Agronomist Wycliffe Obwoge said soil streaming and crop rotation remain the approved ways of dealing with fusarium wilt and other diseases that do not have chemical remedies.

Farmers, especially those with greenhouses steam soil to kill the fungi before planting polythene bags. The bags are again placed on polythene sheets to prevent new contamination from the ground.

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: 25 October 2022; Hits: 1734

Young nutritionist named UN-Kenya person of the year

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By George Munene

Kenyan nutritionist and food scientist Wawira Njiru has been named the UN in Kenya person of the year 2021.

The 31-year-old was recognised for her efforts to serve 33,000 meals daily to thousands of Kenyan primary school-going children through her Tap2Eat program that issues each kid with a smart wristband linked to a virtual wallet into which parents deposit money.

Through her organisation Food 4 Education, Wawira prepares and distributes nutritious meals at a reduced cost to public school children in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Kiambu counties.

“The time is now for every Kenyan child to access nutritious meals in schools,” she stated during her speech receiving the award.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic that disrupted learning in most Kenyan schools Food 4 Education through its innovative technology, Tap2Eat, has served over four million meals to children who would otherwise have been undernourished.

The non-profit was able to reach children with subsidised nutritious meals through strategic distribution centers and virtual cash transfers.

Through 2021 and 2022 Ms. Njiru has set up an additional three kitchens across the country.

The first in partnership with the Kisumu county government to feed an additional 10,000 children in the region.

The second is a pilot kitchen in Mombasa that serves 3,000 children which the company is looking to upscale to 40,000 children.

And a third state-of-the-art kitchen in Kiambu County that cooks with steam.

Kenya is identified as a country with a serious hunger crisis by the Global Hunger Index.

26.9 per cent of the population is undernourished; 23.6 per cent of children under five years exhibit symptoms of physical and cognitive stunting; while 4.2 per cent of death in children under five are directly linked to undernourishment.

Food 4 Education is working to set up kitchens across the country and aims to serve up to one million school meals daily by 2025.

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: 24 October 2022; Hits: 3803

Agripreneur ventures into cricket farming helping livestock farmers tame feed cost

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By George Munene

Previously producing crickets for their rich protein content to fortify baking and maize flour, David Williams of Aloe Feeds expanded to include animal feeds in July last year due to the exorbitant cost of feeds in the country.

“Crickets are a promising alternative/supplement to commercial poultry and pig feeds as they are a rich source of protein, cost-efficient to rear, and multiply exponentially,” the farmer based in Kisumu said.

Crickets contain up to 75 per cent crude protein, 6.90 per cent crude fiber, 26.90 per cent fat, and 78.90 per cent total digestible nutrients.

The crickets are harvested, sun-dried and ground using a feed-chopping/grinding machine.

“Poultry feed does not need to be finely ground. We mix in aloe powder to control intestinal worms and Newscastle disease as well as maize cobs for extra calcium,” Williams explained.

He says this mix has reduced their production cost to a negligible amount, improved the growth rate of their chicken, reduced their mortality, and boosted their immunity.

“Pure kienyeji chicken that took up to seven months to start laying now takes just four. In pigs, farmers using crickets in their feed rations have also reported similar reductions in maturity rates,” he added.

Their protein content is double that of beef. They have four times as much iron as spinach and more calcium than milk. The lipid content is between 4.30 to 33.44 per cent of dry matter.

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They are also flush with essential amino acids which are the building blocks for proteins in animals.

Crickets reach maturity in just six weeks at which point females can lay up to 100 eggs every day and 3,000 eggs in their lifetime. “In a 4M×4M room, a farmer can harvest up to 50 kilos of crickets daily.”

They are light feeders: “10,000 crickets can be sufficiently satiated with just 10 leaves of sukumawiki daily-- this means their cost of nutrition is minimal for the farmer,” David pointed out.

The farm sells cricket eggs for Sh4500 for a batch of 6,000 eggs.

The edible crickets market is projected to hit $9.60 billion by 2030. Across the world, crickets are the most commonly consumed insects. Insects are an excellent food as they are cheap and have minimal impact on the environment as well as being rich in protein.

Aloe Feeds: 0798572144

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