Smart farms

: 21 April 2016; Hits: 9111

Kenyan farmer film moves world leaders to tears

The story of a Kenyan subsistence farmer, Kisilu Musya, has been made into a film and is being used as a valuable resource in educating people about the vagaries of climate change.

Kisilu says he was awakened to the problems of climate change after noticing a drift of ?the weather patterns from a seasonal format that had rain in specific months of the year to one where days of heavy rainfall would be followed by days of drought and windstorms.

Change of attitude

After some research, Kisilu, who relocated from Nairobi to his rural home in Kitui learnt that the changing weather patterns was a function of global warming, which he discovered could be countered by planting trees and organic farming practices.

The father of nine spends most of his days walking around villages, educating people on a volunteer basis about climate change and how to stop it.

He also carries a handheld camera, which he has used to take photos around farms, showing, over time, how much damage has been caused. Kisilu further ?collects weather information, which he sends out to a database of farmers around him, informing them of the kind of crops they should be cultivating at particular times and other precautionary measures to take against any eventualities.

Telling the story

It is this initiative that attracted the interest of film makers from Norway, who recorded his day-to-day life over a period of four years and packaged it in a film titled Kisilu: The Climate Diaries.

The 48-minute film premiered at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, COP 21 ?held in Paris, France, from November 30 to December 12.

World leaders, among them Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, calling for united efforts to save the planet for future generations. Kisilu felt a superstar after addressing the world's biggest environmental conference.

Most of those ?who watched the film were ?moved to tears.

The film is available to watch for free on Al Jazeera through the link: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2015/12/kisilu-climate-diaries-151202130224609.html

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 21 April 2016; Hits: 14399

Eldoret dairy school brings hands on training to farmers

An Eldoret farmer has set up a special training facility to increase knowledge in dairy production.

Pyllis Keino's move to start Lewa Practical Dairy Training Centre LPDTC on her Baraka Farm was informed by minimum skills in the agribusiness among farmers, leading to to low productivity.

The training sessions at the centre are structured to 60 per cent practical and 40 per cent theory.

It covers covers eight modules which include Napier grass and fodder management, feeding, housing, calf rearing, milk technique and hygiene, fertility and breeding, health and disease and record keeping.

The centre is set on a two and half acre piece of land, which has a small-holder zero-grazing demonstration unit.

Trainees are allowed time in the farm’s main dairy establishment that has 80 Holstein Friesian cows and a young stock rearing unit.

The fee charged for one week training is KSh15,000 ($150). This caters for training, accommodation, meals, and other learning aid materials, including books, pens, coveralls, dust coats and gumboots. A certificate of completion is issued at the end of the course.

Graduates

Between 2013, when the course was launched and December 2015, 350 people (farmers, trainers and students) have graduated from the training centre.

It is notable that 82 per cent of the graduates have been male and 18 female.

Head trainer and Baraka Farm manager Jos Creemers says most potential trainees prefer one-day training to the comprehensive five days. This is the main challenge the training centre is facing, he says.

--------------------------

Baraka Farm is in Uasin Gishu County,along the Webuye-Malaba Road. You can reach them using the phone numbers: +254 700 342 758 and +254 705 884 233 or Emails: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Write comment (0 Comments)

: 21 April 2016; Hits: 8778

Naivasha farm harvests 3 million litres of El Nino water

When the proprietors of the Aberdare Hills Golf Resort were drafting plans for a mega golf course, they knew that they would face a lot of challenges with finding water to irrigate the greens-the golf course sits on a 1600-acre property.

Luckily, the project’s Managing Director Dr. Pritam Panesar has been in the construction and engineering business for decades. He quickly allocated space for a 3 million-litre capacity dam at one of the highest points of the farm.

The dam is already full, thanks to the El Nino rains that fell in the past three months.

Experienced

Panesar, 73, has set up grand scale projects in remote countries like Iraq, where he has had to use ingenious water harvesting techniques like the one he has at his farm in Naivasha.

Such strategic water harvesting techniques, before planting, could help Kenyan farmers increase their production through irrigation.

“The hard part was constructing the dam, because the water will be flowing to where it is needed by gravity,” said Panesar.

Rainfed

Overeliance on rainfed agriculture has been one of the key reasons most farmers have had failing yields in recent times.

There is a close relationship between sustainable food production and irrigation. A comparison between Kenya and Egypt, for instance, shows that despite being a desert country with a 90 per cent of the country relying on irrigation water for farming, Egypt still produces more food than Kenya.

Kenya has 5.4 million hectares of arable land, but only 17% is suitable for rainfed farming.

Two-thirds of Africa’s roughly 13,400 hectares of irrigation-equipped land is concentrated in North Africa. Water withdrawals as a share of total renewable resources is 219 percent in northern Africa, but only one per cent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Write comment (0 Comments)