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    By George Munene
     
    Since 2017, Joshua Mamwaka, an agriproduce broker and trader at Nairobi’s Marikiti market has been charting the prices of Kenya’s agricultural commodity prices. His weekly price updates ensure farmers he works with have the prices of tomatoes, onions, potatoes, etc., at hand. Having mapped price trends for up to three years, the Nairobi University Economics graduate, also offers farmers, mama mbogas, and other brokers, a crystal ball; predicting future commodity prices with a proven accuracy of up to 90 per cent.
     
    After buying expensive inputs and going through the painstaking task of sowing and tending to their crops to maturity, farmers are at times disappointed with the prices they are met with at markets or are quoted to by brokers. As Joshua puts it, “Farmers have rightly majored in food production, however, this often comes at the cost of abandoning the more important aspect of sales, which is the bigger determinant in running a successful agribusiness.”
     
     
    Onions as an example are at their highest from the tail end of March through to mid June when the prices of Kenyan onions collapse on entry of Tanzanian onions. This persists until mid November. Mid November to mid March makes up what Joshua describes as gambler’s market; “While prices can be fair, they are often affected by factors such as the boom and burst nature of Kenyan agriculture; market oversupply one year is often followed by undersupply the next as  speculative farmers who had grown a crop that did well the previous year inevitably ditch it.” 
     
    As a rule of thumb, when the wholesale kilo price of onions for example is Sh60, the farm gate price should be less Sh 25-15 which is the broker’s fee, determined by quantity and distance to market. Higher commodity prices mean the broker’s spread rises and their margins are lower when prices fall. This swings vary with different crops.
     
    With the weekly price intel and the data he has collated, Mamwaka hopes to keep farmers who are often far from major markets, and/or are unable to access them in the know. To this end, he is working on publishing his inaugural 2022 price market guide.
     
     
    Joshua will begin publishing a synopsis of the weekly price trends of foodstuff in the country on Farmbiz with a more exhaustive breakdown to be found on his Marikiti Price Watch WhatsApp group at an annual cost of Sh 500. You can reach Joshua on 0792404438
     
    He will also host a webinar delving deeper into how farmers can time their planting and harvesting to get higher returns by understanding annual and seasonal price trends. To register follow this link: Mapping crop prices to earn more
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    Farm­ers can avert drastic and im­me­di­ate death of day-old chicks soon after in­tro­du­cing them into the new brooders by of­fer­ing clean water and en­sur­ing the tem­per­at­ure is kept within the re­quired range.

    A few days to the end of brood­ing period, chicks ab­sorb all li­quid in the egg. The mois­ture would keep them going until they get water after hatch­ing.

    Mary Njeri, the owner of Poultry Farm Hatch­ery said chicks can be vac­cin­ated and all other pre-trans­port­a­tion ar­range­ments made but de­hyd­ra­tion and new en­vir­on­ment shock can lead to losses of the chicks.

    READ ALSO: Li­quid par­affin helps day-old chick on first feed­ing

    The poultry rear­ing and in­cub­a­tion ex­pert said it is not easy to tell when the chicks need water for in­stance. But fer­ry­ing them can lead to re­duced water in the sys­tem, there­fore, af­fect­ing nor­mal body func­tions.

    “Tem­per­at­ure on ar­rival must be between 32 de­grees Celsius and 34 de­grees Celsius. Water is ne­ces­sary be­fore they start feed­ing. Suf­fi­cient clean water must be provided as one of the way of mak­ing the brooder friendly,” she said.

    READ ALSO: What to con­sider while buy­ing one day old chicks

    Chicks are del­ic­ate, she says. Over­crowded brooders also present stress­ful mo­ments for the new chicks, which af­fects de­vel­op­ment as they adapt to the new en­vir­on­ment.

    A spa­cing of 25 chicks per square metre is re­com­men­ded for the lay­ers. Twenty broiler chicks can cover one metre square space.

    De­pend­ing on the type of heat source being used, 1,000 chicks would be com­fort­able with a hover while 200 would be stress free with one in­frared bulb.

    READ ALSO: Li­quid par­affin helps day-old chick on first feed­ing

    Chicks crowding at the source of heat in­dic­ate that the brooder is cold while mov­ing to the peri­phery means it is too hot.

    Form­ing a pyr­amid-like file from the centre of heat to­wards one corner of the brooder sig­ni­fies drought or strong cold wind.

    Con­tam­in­ated feeds or in­fec­tion from the hatch­ery can also cause deaths of such young chicks soon after in­tro­duc­tion into the new set of con­di­tions, Mary said.

    Be­sides buy­ing feeds from re­og­nised sup­pli­ers, gen­eral clean­li­ness while hand­ling all equip­ment and dis­in­fect­ing one­self be­fore en­ter­ing the rear­ing re­gion.

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    Farm­ers can cut on sow mast­itis treat­ment costs by clip­ping pig­let teeth on the first day after birth.

    Clip­ping in­volves ‘cut­ting’ or blunt­ing of the eight teeth to get rid of the sharp poin­ted ends. Pig­lets are born with needle­like teeth, which can in­jure the udder of the mother dur­ing suck­ling. 

    “Wounds pre­dis­pose the moth­ers to dis­eases like mast­itis. With the wounds, the sow re­jects the pig­lets by kick­ing them when they try to suckle be­cause of the pain,” Bern­ard Nyara­mba, a Kaka­mega County pig farmer.

    READ ALSO: Ex­clus­ive com­mer­cial feed­ing helps farmer de­liver pigs on time

    Mast­itis is the in­flam­ma­tion of the mam­mary glands res­ult­ing from entry of bac­terial and other dis­ease caus­ing agents into the udder. Patho­gens are picked from the en­vir­on­ment.

    Severe at­tack can lead to star­va­tion and death of the pig­lets.

    READ ALSO: How two pigs can give you close to Sh1 mil­lion in one Year

    Be­sides the re­jec­tion from the sows, in­flam­ma­tion of the mam­mary glands means no pro­duc­tion of milk, a con­di­tion known as agalac­tia.

    Al­though treat­ment costs vary ac­cord­ing to the in­tens­ity of the in­fec­tion, last­ing dam­age to the udder many not be re­versed in severe cases.

    At the same time, the patho­gens may cause other in­fec­tions to the pig­lets be­sides spread­ing to other sows in the sty. The pig­lets may also in­jure one an­other as they scramble for the teats. They use them as weapons. 

    READ ALSO: Ugandan pigs gain 0.5 kgs daily from loc­ally made feeds

    “Front teas tend to have more milk, whose quant­ity drops to the rear ones. Pig­lets have a tend­ency of es­tab­lish­ing own­er­ship of teats. They use the sharp teeth to de­fend the teats against in­va­sion from ‘sib­lings’,” Nyara­mba said.

    The pro­cess can be done by the farmer or a veter­in­arian. The bot­tom line is care should be taken to avoid in­jur­ing the gums. 

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    1. Irregular irrigation causes splitting in tomato farming
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