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    DamwaterJonathanJomoNyeriByCourtesy.jpg

    The construction of a mini dam to collect water is saving a Nyeri County farmer more than Sh6,000 in monthly bills besides supporting a constant flow of onions despite the weather.

    Jonathan Jomo constructed a 70,000 litre mini dam at his farm in Kieni, in 2015. Before then, he used to pay a water bill of between Sh6,000 and Sh8,000 to meet irrigation needs. The dam is covered on top for safety and reducing water loss by evaporation.

    The water bill was scuttling Jomo’s profits by increasing the production costs. 

    Being an all-year-round farmer, Jomo is saving more than Sh80,000 per annum spent on irrigation.

    “I spent about Sh120,000. Kieni does not have constant rainfall. The water I collect in the dam is sufficient to run my drip irrigation for more than two months after the rains. Although I have the piped water system as my back-up, I have rarely used it,” he said.

    Drip irrigation is one of the most economical methods of supplying water to crops because only a few drops are released to the stem region of the crop.

     “I use grass mulching to cut down the cost of weeding in addition to improving the organic composition in the soil as the matter rots. The mulch also helps in preserving water by preventing direct sunlight to ground,” Jomo said.

    Besides the organic onions, the farmer is expanding into garlic, tomatoes, capsicum, among other crops to cover at least 

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    Fall Armyworm

    By George Munene

    The Fall Army­worm (FAW) is amongst the most dev­ast­at­ing pests to Africa’s food sys­tems. In re­sponse to this, ag­ri­cul­ture non­profit Land O’Lakes 37 and Villa Crop Pro­tec­tion have pre­pared freely ac­cess­ible train­ing mod­ules out­lining the ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponses small­holder farm­ers should take to com­bat this pest. 

    Re­search amongst Zi­m­b­ab­wean farm-hold­ers showed that those who failed to im­ple­ment these con­trol strategies had a 50% lower per cap­ita house­hold in­come than their coun­ter­parts that im­ple­men­ted them. 

    Ac­cord­ing to data from the Centre for Ag­ri­cul­ture and Bios­cience In­ter­na­tional (CABI), in the ab­sence of any con­trol meth­ods, the Fall Army­worm (FAW), causes maize yield losses of 21–53 per cent in just of 12 of Africa’s maize pro­du­cing coun­tries an­nu­ally. This amounts to 8.3 to 20.6 mil­lion tonnes; Sh267-Sh666 bil­lion in po­ten­tial losses.

    Re­lated News: Solar in­sect light trap or­gan­ic­ally re­duces pests by 80%

    Re­lated News: ICIPE re­leases wasp to con­trol Tuta Ab­so­luta pest that causes 100% to­mato dam­age

    Small­holder maize grow­ing house­holds blighted by the pests are at a 12 per cent higher risk of ex­per­i­en­cing hun­ger.

    The learn­ing mod­ules are meant to equip ex­ten­sion ser­vice pro­viders who then dis­sem­in­ate the ac­quired know­ledge and skill on crop pro­tec­tion to small­holder farm­ers. The in­form­a­tion is however open-source; freely ac­cess­ible to any­one.

    Re­lated News: Re­search­ers de­velop bio­lo­gical Striga pesti­cide, im­proves yield 50%

    Amongst the key areas the seven mod­ule course cov­ers in­clude: Fall Army­worm iden­ti­fic­a­tion; Chem­ical and non-chem­ical con­trols of FAW, as well as re­spons­ible chem­ical use when com­batting FAW.

    The ma­ter­i­als for each mod­ule is freely avail­able for use and down­load upon re­gis­tra­tion here: https://​agritraining.​co.​za/​login

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    Biovision Africa

    By George Munene

    As Kenyans grow more con­scious of the food they con­sume, there is an ever-in­creas­ing de­mand for or­gan­ic­ally farmed pro­duce amongst the coun­try's middle and upper class. Even though pesti­cide and fer­til­iser free pro­duce fetches a premium price, a lack of ex­pert­ise and mar­ket link­ages has meant that in­vest­ments in this still green ag­ri­cul­tural sub-sec­tor have re­mained low. 

    Foun­ded in Kenya in 2009, Bio­vi­sion Africa Trust (BvAT), helps small­holder farm­ers bridge these gaps in fund­ing and tech­nical know-how and aims to pro­mote health­ier foods and ag­ri­cul­tural sys­tems for Africa.

    At the launch of the trust’s four-year stra­tegic plan in Nairobi on Thursday, Dr David Amu­davi, BvAT’s Ex­ec­ut­ive Dir­ector em­phas­ised the need to en­sure that African farm­ers pro­duce food that is safe and em­ploy en­vir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able agroe­co­nomic prac­tices. ”With the com­mence­ment of the farmer com­mu­nic­a­tion pro­gram and eco­lo­gical or­ganic ag­ri­cul­tural ini­ti­at­ive, 2021 was a de­fin­ing year for our or­gan­isa­tion. With this stra­tegic plan, we want to bol­ster dy­namic mar­kets and trade in or­ganic pro­duce as well as cham­pi­on­ing for and en­abling policy and in­sti­tu­tional en­vir­on­ment for our or­ganic grow­ers,”.Amu­davi said.

    Re­lated News: Fer­til­izer man­u­fac­ture en­list­ing or­ganic farm­ers to sup­ply ready mar­ket  

    Re­lated  News: Pro­cessor guar­an­tees prices for or­ganic and tra­di­tional out­grow­ers

    The or­gan­isa­tion works with farm­ers in East­ern Africa coun­tries, Kenya, Uganda, Tan­zania, Ethiopia, and Rwanda as well as with some West­ern African coun­tries.

    “There is a need to pro­mote or­ganic ag­ri­cul­ture to re­duce the re­li­ance on chem­ical in­puts which do not only des­troy the re­sources of our pro­duc­tion but also the en­vir­on­ment,” shared Amu­davi

    An­dreas Schriber, BvAT’s Board Chair, ar­gued that with sus­tain­able eco­lo­gical ag­ri­cul­tural prac­tices farm­ers not only get a re­turn on in­vest­ment from the re­turns from their yields but also an added value in the im­prove­ment in the over­all health of their soils, an­im­als, and their fam­il­ies.

    “From a paltry 50,000 hec­tares of or­gan­ic­ally farmed land 10 years ago when BvAT was foun­ded the sec­tor has grown to over 2.1 mil­lion hec­tares today,” he said. 

    For Rose Mwongo, a farmer in Machakos County, Bio­vi­sion has been trans­form­at­ive to her through les­sons on sus­tain­able farm­ing over radio pro­grammes such as Kilimo Hai, and The Or­ganic Farmer magazines.

    As a maize and beans farmer, her shift to eco­lo­gical ag­ri­cul­ture has meant a re­duc­tion in pesti­cide and fer­til­iser costs.  

    Re­lated News: Rab­bit keep­ing opens route to or­ganic farm­ing, fer­til­iser and pest con­trol

    “Be­fore, I never knew I could mix plants and come up with strong chem­ic­als that kill and keep away pests and dis­eases,” she stated.

    She also lauded BvAT ex­ten­sion ser­vice of­fi­cials who have helped her ac­quire a dam liner from the county. This en­sures she has suf­fi­cient har­ves­ted water sup­plies that tide her over even in the drier sea­sons.

    Bio­vi­sion Africa Trust: +254 719052113

                                        This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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    1. Online marketplace helping Kenyan nomads avoid perennial losses
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