Smart farms

: 14 October 2020; Hits: 8968

Laikipia trust employs 700+ women processing cacti and aloy

cactus img

By George Munene

Laikipia Permaculture Center (LPC) a community-based Trust has created employment for over 700 women in the county of Laikipia by engaging them in value addition of cacti and aloe vera by-products.

Founded in 2014 as a partnership of four women groups from Laikipia, the center has helped women harness the economic benefits of this untapped venture through value addition and linking them to export markets.

“At its founding, the trust sought to figure out ways of easing pressure caused by overgrazing in most of the country’s arid and semi-arid regions and also give the women in the area economic independence,” explains Joseph Lentunyoi, one of the group's founders.

LPC propagates aloe secundiflora variety seedlings, an aloe species indigenous to the region and sells them to the women at a cost of Sh80 each.

“LPC has really aimed at fully utilizing cacti and aloe plants in this region. For instance, the cacti fruit is used to make wine. Through us, the women also export fresh Aloe leaves to the United Kingdom at $10 per kilo of leaves.

Aloe value addition is done by sun-drying and grinding the leaves to make powder sold for Sh1000 per kilo, the gel inside is extracted to make aloe juice packaged in 500ml Sh400 bottles whilst the plant’s sap is also used as an ingredient in the making of cosmetic products such as soap sold locally at Sh100 per100 grams, cream and shampoos at Sh200 per 100 grams and aloe tea sold at Sh500 per 500 grams.

Aloes are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora; the trust has partnered with KWS to acquire permits to grow and sell seedlings as well as export aloe leaves and their byproducts.

The cactus is an invasive shrub that has been a thorn in the side of herders with their sweet spiky fruits causing the death of many of their livestock as well as reducing the quality and size of grazing land available. The women groups are however harnessing its nutritional value (low saturated fats, high vitamin A and C content, high magnesium and calcium and iron content making it an antioxidant that helps prevent cancer and other lifestyle diseases) of cacti fruits in the making of jams, juices, wine, yoghurt, honey and oils.

Cactus fruits are plucked and their spikes scrapped off, they are stored and sold to LPC at Sh500 a crate. At an agro-processing plant at Jua Kali, Laikipia, the fruits are blended and separated from their seeds. For winemaking, one liter of cactus pulp is diluted into three liters of water and pastoralized to 75 degrees, cooled to 45 degrees before adding wine yeast and fermented for 14 days. The wine is again pastoralized to before being packaged as a final product.

With the success of Laikipia Permaculture Center. the trust aims to expand the scope of its partner to women in neighboring Isiolo and Samburu counties.

“Aside from value addition of the crops, we also get the women engaged in rearing kienyeji chicken and rabbits, bread making and in the construction of modern natural cob houses from sand, straw and clay,” adds Joseph

Laikipia Permaculture Centre: 0727 845 123/0702 095 644/0726 787 085/0736053985

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: 08 October 2020; Hits: 24177

Kericho farmer builds model dairy unit milking 520 litres daily

Government officials at Peter Chirchir's farm

By George Munene

After switching from open field to zero-grazing, in four short years, Peter Chirchir has built a benchmark farm housing around 50 cows. His milking herd consists of 24 cows averaging 25 litres between them. Milking 520 litres daily, he sells his milk directly to consumers at between Sh50-60 per litre.

The resident of Kapsoit ward, Kericho County, says he’s always been passionate about animal husbandry. In 2017, he had seven free-ranged cattle and was milking 30 litres from four of them. Although he’d always been accumulating a knowledge base on dairy farming and had planned on venturing into intensive dairy farming, it was not until a benchmarking trip to Kericho that he got a first-hand account of and learnt the ropes on zero-grazing.

Since then he has steadily improved and increased his heard, sourcing and buying cows from Iten, Eldoret to Githunguri, where he bought his best producer which milked 35 litres but with proper feeding and treatment, now gives him 44 litres.

Chirchir has become a leading light for medium scale holder dairy farmers in his region, even recently hosting visitors from the national and county government led by livestock principal secretary Harry Kimutai, on a fact-finding mission on problems facing Kenyan dairy farmers. He also hosts other farmers looking to improve their husbandry skills on his farm every weekend.

“With zero-grazing, there is minimal wastage as cows are confined, using most of the energy gotten from feeds for growth and milk production. My entire zero-grazing unit sits on less than ¼ an acre and this gives me the opportunity to grow high yielding and high-value fodder on the rest of my land,” he adds.

For feeding, Peter grows maize on his own three acres, ¼ acre of napier grass, and has leased another 10 acres for growing boma rhodes grass for hay. He grows the Dk 777 maize variety, harvesting at 2 ½-3 months when the maize corn is milky as at this stage the starch content and fibre digestibility is at an optimum range. He is able to harvest four loads of silage maize annually, enough to feed his heard for the year. For harvest and compacting, he hires a forage harvester from the county government at a cost of Sh1800 per hour. In making his silage he does not use any molasses as the maize’s cob and stalk have enough sugars that allow for fermentation. Peter prefers surface to pit silaging—from his experience, it is harder to prevent water sipping into and rotting silage stored in trenches. When the price of hay falls, he buys more bales to bolster his reserves—he recently bought 1000 bales for Sh60 each.

For his milkers, Peter feeds them on a ration of silage, hay and dairy meal. The quantity of dairy meal he gives is calculated by one kilogram dairy meal for every two litres of milk a cow gives above the first five litres. For heifers, he opts for napier, hay, standard maize germ and wheat straw as well as about three kilos of dairy meal as they reach their first calving. For his calves, he separates them from their mother on the second day after their birth and feeds them on six litres of milk for their first month, four litres for the second and two litres for the third month. On the fourth month, he feeds them on one litre of milk for the first week and begins to wean them on the second.

For milking purposes, he uses a fixed Delaval milking system capable of milking four cows in one go, having ditched portable cow milking machines. This he says has greatly reduced the usual time spent on milking by his five farmhands. He also eschews the use of cow mattresses—a fixture in most modern Kenyan dairy units. Having used them until two years ago, he now prefers to have his cows’ bed in straws and dung as he has found them to be more comfortable and less prone to mastitis. Mattress he says, are also expensive and demand the farmer uses a lot of water washing them.

He serves first-time calvers with sexed semen and conventional semen to second and third-time calvers as fertilisation rates of sexed semen in repeat mothers is often low. He recommends farmers master the AM to PM rule—serving 12 hours at the onset of heat as this avoids conception failure.

Apart from occasional flare-ups of mastitis and milk fever, instances of diseases in his herd are negligible. This is because his cows are fenced in and stall-fed having no interaction with other cows that might be disease carriers. Cows gotten colder parts of the country easily adapt to warmer climates he says, though he also gives climate adaptation injection to help new cows easily grow accustomed to their new environment.

Having been amongst the many farmers who lost their money after Kenya Co-operative Creameries collapsed in 1999, Peter has always been intent on owning the entire agricultural value chain—from his farm to the final consumer. At Kapsoit town, he has his own shop which he pays Sh5,000 in monthly rent from where he sells his milk. The demand for milk is hard to quench he says; he is usually open for a couple of hours after morning and afternoon milking before all his milk is picked up. Peter is now working on value addition in the form of pasteurization, packaging as well as venturing into yoghurt making.

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Sunday, 15 August 2021 [quote=kiplangat brian]very interesting indeed. would love to pay him a visit. a...

Thursday, 05 August 2021 very interesting indeed. would love to pay him a visit. and probably discuss dai...

Friday, 11 December 2020 [quote=Wilson oketch]I need two dairy cows a fresian and Arshyre.Please call my ...

Tuesday, 08 December 2020 I need two dairy cows a fresian and Arshyre.Please call my no. 0716854118 or Fac...

: 01 October 2020; Hits: 15553

Black Soldier Fly grower enlisting farmers to earn income

By George Munene

Ecodudu, a waste-to-value company housed at the Chandaria Business Innovation Incubation centre, is seeking to recruit small to medium scale farmers looking to generate extra revenue by rearing the insects on their site with the company’s support.

Black Soldier Flies (BSF) are a cheap alternative source of protein for pigs, poultry and fish. They offer equal value to more expensive protein sources such as omena, fishmeal and soybeans thus are useful for farmers looking to lower their production costs.

Birthed in 2017, the Company’s co-founder Starlin Farah, explains that a farmer needs to demonstrate a capacity to feed the flies on sources of organic waste available to them on their farm or household level. Though a greenhouse works best in rearing the fly, a basic farm shed could also be repurposed to house and grow BSF.

While the black soldier fly takes 31 days to mature, Ecodudu sells farmers young larvae to rear from the fifth to nineteenth day—the time they are young larvae until about their prepupa stage. The insects are vociferous eaters and gain up to ten times their weight after just 14 days. The firm buys back mature flies from farmers at Sh50-90 per kilogram. They are dried and packaged as Dudu Meal feed which has a 45% crude protein content and 36% of fats.

Black soldier flies are neither pests nor vectors; like redworms, they are useful in decomposing organic substrates, composting household and agricultural waste products. Ecodudu sells this fortified bio-fertiliser.

Ecodudu seeks to harness insects as recycling agents in use to address global issues such as waste management, growing protein demand and environmental conservation. The company is part of the FoodTech Africa Accelerator Program 2020 and its founders are finalists for this year's under 30 agriprenuer of the year award.

Farmer Registration: https://ecodudu.com/farmers-registration/

Ecodudu: +254 725-888-071/ +254 721-237-009

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Monday, 16 August 2021 [quote=Ken]Hi I am located at mwingi can bsf grow here?[/quote] Hi Ken, yes, Bl...

Thursday, 15 July 2021 Hi I am located at mwingi can bsf grow here?

Wednesday, 04 November 2020 [quote=Jane Nganga]Hi. Am Jane Nganga whats my total investment in startup?[/qu...

Tuesday, 03 November 2020 Hi. Am Jane Nganga whats my total investment in startup?

Monday, 19 October 2020 [quote=Mark kemboi]Hi am kemboi from trans nzoia county.Enroll me please.So inte...