Smart farms

: 28 August 2020; Hits: 15738

Nakuru farmer giving free rabbits and cages to youth to start farming

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By George Munene

James Kibuku, owner of Kibuku Rabbit Farms in Nakuru is encouraging youth in Nyandarua County to take up rabbit keeping as a source of income by giving them a free pair of starter rabbits and free construction materials for their own rabbitry.

“Due to Covid-19 these kids are at home with nothing much to do, rearing rabbits will at least keep them engaged and hopefully they will keep at it and earn some income,” he said. He will also help them in finding a market for their rabbits if this proves challenging.

With a pregnant doe and unrelated buck, they can use the buck to father the first batch of kits when they are mature. James normally sells a rabbit for Sh750 to Sh2500, and he is hoping the country’s youth may now experience the economic potential in rabbit keeping, instead of holding onto the notion of rabbit keeping as a pastime for small boys.

Formerly a poultry farmer, Kibuku dropped chicken for rabbits because the poultry birds were far more expensive to keep. He now has some 250 pedigree rabbits on his farm, and thanks to his advertising on Facebook, he says, he has never lacked for buyers.

He also constructs metallic rabbit cages and offers consultancy to farmers looking to get into rabbit keeping. Every Sunday, he holds free training to budding rabbit farmers at his homestead located a ten-minute drive from Nakuru Town along Bahati Road.

Kibuku also organises drives across the country to sensitise people to the benefits of rabbit meat. He argues: “Kenyans do not have an aversion to rabbit meat, the problem is most people have not had the opportunity to taste some; I am seeking to change that.”

Kibuku Rabbit Farm: 0722 741827

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Tuesday, 06 April 2021 [quote=Nancy]Am Nancy from njoro and am interested in rabbit farming mostly for ...

Sunday, 04 April 2021 Am Nancy from njoro and am interested in rabbit farming mostly for meat and it'...

Monday, 22 March 2021 I have more than 80 rabbit whare do I sell them

Monday, 11 January 2021 [quote=Marion gakii]Am Marion from nakuru ,please help me on how to start a rabb...

Sunday, 10 January 2021 [quote=Peter muraguri]I am a youth from subukia .I have desire join in farming ....

: 25 August 2020; Hits: 9724

Training farm delivers 1,000 agricultural interns a year and innovation hub

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By George Munene
Latia Farm located at Seising, off the Isinya Kiserian road, sits on some 60 acres, 38 acres of which are currently under use, in a grand, private-sector adventure of agricultural training and innovation.
The farm has lecture halls, dormitories and a restaurant to offer six month apprenticeship courses to some 1000 form four leavers yearly— a quarterly intake of 250 students. The apprentices are given practical farming experience on almost every facet of farming; crop farming, specialized horticulture and animal husbandry. The program, which is part sponsored by Kenya Commercial Bank, offers loaned training, feeding and board, which the trainees pay off from the produce they grow and is sold outside the farm. On completing the course, Latia, also helps them get internship placements. Recruits for the program are sought from across the country with the help of county officials.

Practical farming experience is also offered to farmers who are looking to learn intensive/innovative farming methods. This is given as a four day Thursday to Sunday crash course at a Sh1000 daily charge.
Consultancy and marketing services, especially to first time farmers looking to avoid the pitfalls many agripreneurs endure when starting out are also a part of their offering.
The farm is compartmentalised with areas offering open field and greenhouse farming as well a 7 acre Agritech section which serves as an innovation hub. David Kimwaki, an agronomist at the farm, says they have worked out ways of using earthworms to decompose manure used as organic foliar. They are also refining the use of shade nets, which are much cheaper, as a stand in for greenhouses.

They are stretches of maize fields as well as French beans which grown for the export market. The farm is replete with greenhouses used to house tomatoes. Majoring in horticulture; sukuma wikis, cabbages, onions, capsicums, broccolis, butternuts, cucumbers and cauliflowers are a fixture on the farm. They also grow indigenous veggies such as the spider plant, black nightshade and managu. The farm has 10 cows, pigs, milk goats, chickens and has just gotten into rabbit keeping.
Latia Farm: 0716 431054

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: 21 August 2020; Hits: 10103

Youth take learning to the farm to earn in Coronavirus school closure

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By George Munene

The halt in schooling caused by the coronavirus has left hundreds of thousands of young people at home for at least another four months at a time when the economy is estimated to have lost one million jobs and forecasts of economic contraction compete for gloom. However, some of our youth have turned to agriculture to earn through the break.

Frank Muthomi, a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science student at Egerton University is one such young man. At Nkubu town in Meru County the 24-year-old is now a month into establishing the Rambo F1 tomato variety on ¼ of an acre.

Some of the bananas on his farm are now ready for harvest and he’d hoped this would give him some upkeep money once schools reopened. Covid-19 has upended his plans and he’s used this opportunity to delve into the much more labour intensive but high value tomato farming.

To start off, he was simultaneously tending to his tomato seedlings in a nursery—they need one month to mature—whilst harvesting maize from the previous season, clearing and preparing his land to receive the tomatoes.

For manure, he bought five 100 Kg bags from Isiolo for Sh400 a bag—a lorry of the same goes for Sh35,000 and farmers contend that the goat manure from Meru’s neighbour county gives better yields as it is more easily taken up by crops than the locally sourced usual cow manure.

He also bought 15 Kgs of DAP fertiliser for Sh1050.

For every tomato plant he transplanted he mixed in fertiliser and manure then watered adequately to avoid scorching his plants. With his labour force of five, this took four days, and he paid each person Sh400 daily.

Pests are the bane of any tomato farmer, for Frank these are usually red spider mites, thrips and cutworms. Beforehand, he had read up on pest control and readied himself with a regiment of pesticides, which he alternately sprays once every week to avoid pests building up resistance.

He waters his tomatoes once every day, unless the weather is very cold. He also cautions farmers against the use of sprinklers—water shouldn’t get in contact with tomato leaves as this exacerbates cases of blight.

In the third week after transplanting, the tomato roots were established enough to top dress, which he did with DAP and compound NPK 23:23:23 fertiliser. He has also desuckered and staked his tomatoes—this reduces the number of branches making the plant healthier and encourages vertical growth, it also makes the plant suitable for support.

Frank is now readying for his first harvest. From the market study he has done of the nearby Nkubu and Kiigene markets, he could fetch at least Sh25 per kg for his tomatoes. He bought a 25 gram sachet of seed for Sh1,000 and hopes to harvest 4,000 kilograms from his crop, bringing in revenue of around Sh100,000. For the next season, he plans to grow cabbages.

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