Machinery

: 27 May 2020; Hits: 4034

Wedding garden farmer saves Sh8,000 a month with solar pump

By Frederique Achieng’

A wedding garden business owner in Kisumu has cut her water pumping expenses from Sh2,000 a week to zero by using a solar water pump sold on an instalment credit plan. The saved expenses have paid for the pump in just nine months and left her with a charging device for phones and lights as well as a permanent water supply.

Elizabeth Ombok abandoned cotton farming in 2012 due to poor sales, but it wasn’t until 2018 that she decided to use her one-acre of land to create a garden for a wedding venue.

“My main challenge was getting a constant supply of water to be able to maintain an all-year-round green garden. At first, I used to use water supplied by the Kisumu County Council, but with the water crisis, I had to look for alternative means to maintain my garden,” she said.

The first alternative she turned to was a diesel-fueled water pump. But she was spending Sh2,000 a week fueling the pump. So she then changed to the solar powered water pump, an Sf2 pump that she bought for Sh73,000.

The pump brings up to 3,600 liters of water per hour a distance of 0ft-22ft (7m) from the water source and discharges water up to a distance of 500m.

The pack she paid for included a solar pump, two 60W panels, 6M of high quality suction hose, free installation and a spare parts kit with management tools, all of which she bought from the firm FuturePump.

Aside from the simplicity of the pump, Future Pump lets farmers have a payment plan if they are unable to pay for the pump at one go. The payment plan ranges from a period of three months to one year.

According to Elizabeth, the panels she has allow it to pump water continuously, even on a cloudy day, and they can also be sued to charge electrical accessories, such as phones and flashlights, making it suitable for farmers in remote areas with no access to electricity.

For Elixabeth, her Sh73,000 of spending saved her Sh96,000 of costs in its first year of use, and sees her now set up with free pumping and charging for years to come.

Future Pump can be reached on 0799653260

President Uhuru Kenyatta at the launch of the FuturePump SE1 solar pump Credit: State House, Kenya

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: 22 May 2020; Hits: 5113

Water tanks offer health and savings for rural homes

Tanks

By Lydia Gichuki

Investing in a water tank can reduce a rural home’s water costs by two thirds, reduce water-borne diseases, and pay for itself within a year and a half: freeing up nearly Sh50,000 a year from then onwards to spend on other things, according to a FarmBizAfrica survey of water tank prices and of rural household water spending.

In a normal year, Kenya’s rainy seasons run for most of five months, from March to May and again in October and November, yet most of the rainfall goes uncollected, leaving many households struggling to get water for basic use in the drier months. This is compounded by the unreliability of many water companies, which often supply water to households in rural areas only once or twice a week.

As a result, according to the 2019 census by the Kenya Bureau of Statistics, only 34.2 per cent of Kenya’s households have access to piped drinking water.

Indeed, according to Global Waters, only 58 per cent of Kenyans have access to drinking water at all, and only 30 per cent have access to basic sanitation. Additionally, 41 per cent of Kenyans rely on unimproved water sources, such as ponds, shallow wells and rivers, which are unsafe and unreliable, as most of these sources are open and seasonal.

As a result, many rural households are forced to buy 20-litre jerry cans of water for Sh20 each from water vendors. Yet, an average rural household of five people in Kenya consumes between 150 litres to 200 litres of water daily, for drinking and cooking and for chores such as house mopping, laundry, bathing and general hygiene, and if there is a flushing toilet that uses an additional 26 litres per flush.

For one month, such a household will require 6,000 litres of water, costing up to Sh6,000 a month if bought in jerry cans from water vendors.

The costs are lower for homes that are connected to large water companies. According to the Kiambu Water and Sewerage Company, 1,000 litres of water costs Sh65 plus a monthly meter maintenance fee of Sh250. If no meter is installed, a deposit of Sh1,000 and a meter installation fee of Sh500 is required.

Thus, where a water company is reliable, the savings are only marginal through adding a water tank. But for any farm without tapped water, the savings are considerable, and for rural homes accessing water from open sources, tank water offers health benefits by reducing the chances of contacting disease such as amoeba and cholera.

In terms of supply, 15,000 litres of rainfall can be collected by a household during a typical rainy season, depending on the type of roofing and gutters. Thus, for the five months of the two rainy seasons, a water tank will provide self sufficiency in water. With attention towards collection, it can also provide water for some weeks after the rains stop too.

Based on prices collected by farmbiz.glorycarefoundation.org, it is possible to buy a 10,000 litre tank for Sh65,700. With optimum water collection and direction into the tank from the farm’s rooftops, this size of tank can cover a typical home’s needs for 8 months a year, saving up to Sh48,000 on jerry can water.

The Ministry of Water and Irrigation ádvises that such tanks need proper installation to increase their longevity .The tank should be placed on a plastered area referred to as plinth, which must be smooth to avoid tearing from the pressure and friction when water collects.

The tap can either be at the bottom or on top and a wash out must be built to allow water to pour out. The first water collected from the rainfall must then be poured out to avoid consumption of dirt from the roof.

Additionally, a shade should be built for the tank to ensure it does not get destroyed by the UV light from the sun.

With these measures in place, a water tank should typically last for 20 years.

Below are water tank companies and their prices

KENTAINERS LTD

Contact – 0733206378

500 L - Sh4,500

1,000 L - Sh8,000

2,000 L - Sh12,700

2,300 L - Sh15,000

2,500 L - Sh17,000

3,000 L. - Sh19,000

4,000 L. - Sh28,200

5,000 L. - Sh33,000

6,000 L. - Sh40,000.

8,000 L - Sh57,000.

10,000 L - Sh65,700

16,000 L - Sh140,000

24,000 L - Sh240,000

TOP TANK

Contact: Phone: 020 3939000

100 L- Sh1,650

200 L- Sh2,300

300 L- Sh3,450

750 L- Sh8,000

920 L- Sh8,875

1,000 L - Sh9,125

1,350 L - Sh11,875

1,500 L - Sh12,940

1,900 L - Sh14,500

2,000 L - Sh16,250

2,300 L - Sh16,875

2,500 L - Sh18,437

3,200 L - Sh27,500

3,500 L - Sh28,125

4,200 L - Sh33,750

4,600 L - Sh36,750

5,000L - Sh37,500

8,000 L - Sh67,500

10,000 L - Sh87,500

12,000 L - Sh126,500

15,000 L - Sh170,500

24,000 L - Sh 86,000

Photo; Tanks

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: 22 May 2020; Hits: 3032

COVID Fund delivers free agronomist tests and advice for farmers

By Fredrique Achieng

A new farm know-how service providing soil testing and guidance on ideal crops and seeds is giving free services to farmers for the next three months funded by a COVID fund to help increase farm yields for 2020.

Farmers must be a member of a co-operative society, in order to get the free services from local agronomist company Ujuzikilimo.

Launched in 2014, by Brian Bosire, Ujuzikilimo was inspired by the struggles he saw his mother going through as a result of constant losses after each planting season.

He watched investments go down the drain as a result of not having the know-how and depending on trial and error, which he realised was a common trend amongst local farmers.

Ujuzikilimo, instead, gives farmers individualized technical information so that they can achieve the maximum yield per planting season by knowing what amount and type of fertilizers to use and the best variety of seeds to use, as advised by the company’s agronomists.

Raising yields is the single most direct way for farmers to transform their income. As it is, agriculture accounts for 26 per cent of Kenya’s GDP, with over 75 per cent of its population depending on agriculture for their daily livelihoods. Yet three-quarters of the country’s farmers are achieving yields that are far below average, at around 40 per cent to 50 per cent productivity levels, according to the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (KALRO) report of 2017.

To improve those results, Ujuzikilimo is giving farmers the knowledge to upgrade their agricultural practices using new technologies in farming, such as soil testing, which uses sensors and analytics to achieve precision farming that increases yields by securing better soils in the farm.

The soil testing device uses light, temperature, and ion-selective sensors to detect and measure soil nutrients. Sensors are conditioned to show the amount of specific ions and nutrients that are in the soil sample. This is done by measuring the PH, salinity, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, and moisture in the soil.

Once these results are in, a farmer is advised by an agronomist on the best way forward to care for their soil and their crops.

The agronomist services span soil testing, fertilizer and lime application guidelines, crop breed planning, farm inputs insurance, and the provision of market data, among others.

There are several ways in which farmers can enroll with Ujuzikilimo:

Through sending a short code text message “ujuzi” to 20880 farmers will be registered into the platform and get updates on weather, crop management, and market information.
To register for the COVID fund free services for three months, a farmer needs to be registered in an accredited farming cooperative or society, and can then get technical advice including soil PH tests, farm inputs insurance, fertilizer, and lime application guidelines. To register click here.
To register permanently with the service, packages range from Sh1,000 to Sh3000 per month for the different service levels. To register click here.

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