The Kenya Agricultural Institute(KARI) in collaboration with Fresh Produce and Exporters Association of Kenya (FPEAK) has launched a modern state of the art farmer training center to train farmers on& [ ... ]

One third of all greenhouse-gases emitted in the world come from food systems, from fertilizer manufacture to food storage and packaging according to a study which now recommend farmers to switch to a [ ... ]

Extension officers working with farmers in Bulanda area of Western Kenya are channeling water from the surface of large rocks that are a common phenomenon in the area into small underground tanks whic [ ... ]

A programme designed to put women in the front seat of research and science has returned resounding success at local and policy level, having trained over 250 women scientists in Africa, majority from [ ... ]

An innovation that recycles rice husks into briquettes to replace fuelwood is promising rice farmers in Mwea extra income while cutting environmental pollution four fold, opening up possibilities of [ ... ]

Maasai farmers in Lekuton area of Narok are insulating themselves from drought through low cost, locally assembled spherical tanks that are assisting them harvest runoff water to supplement irrigation [ ... ]

Two enterprising farmers in Isinya have purchased bicycle powered maize sheller, a device that  remove grains from husks at forty times the rate of shelling by hand, a venture they are now cashin [ ... ]

Using the sun to process the much sought after Aloe sap paste produces a higher quality end product and in half the time used in conventional processing methods like using firewood a recent study by I [ ... ]

Few local producers can fund the multi-layered paper trail necessary to selling their goods beyond Kenya, in sharp contrast to Rwanda, which has unleashed an exports bulge by simplifying processes, re [ ... ]

Farmers in Africa can create a trillion-dollar food market by 2030 if they expanded their access to more capital, better technology, irrigated land and grow high-value nutritious foods says a World Ba [ ... ]

The war on climate change has gone a notch higher with the launch of a climate change resource center to aid in sharing of information across East African states and their neighbours, months after Wor [ ... ]

A farmer youth group in Kisii has emerged a market leader and created thousands of jobs thanks to its  banana processing unit that is now creating over 19 value added products from tissue culture [ ... ]

Kenyan farmers will soon be taught farming and other farm management practices through locally translated videos as a global not for profit organization, Access Agriculture, recently expressed interes [ ... ]

Kenyan scientists are learning from their Rwandan counterparts how to use a technology used in the mining sector to test and analyse mineral content of food crops that will ultimately assist them deve [ ... ]

Communities in Laikipia are using Y shaped sticks and metal rods to detect underground water, a simple technology that is cushioning them from lack of water during dry spells.
The water locating techn [ ... ]

An ambitious pilot project launched eight months ago in Nairobi to map groundwater water which would establish quantity and quality with the aim of exploiting the water in case of emergency like droug [ ... ]

A systemic poaching trend in Kenya that has seen over 20 elephants and undocumented number of rhinos shot dead by poachers this year alone is now seeing conservancy groups embrace state of the art tec [ ... ]

After sucessfully launching a satelite based system of monitor illegal fishing in West Africa, World Wildlife Fund now says it is considering introducing the technology in East Africa which is equally [ ... ]

Livestock farmers in Samburu, Pokot and Turkana are among the beneficiaries of a US$56million fund from the African Development Bank (AfDB) that has been set aside to jumpstart modern day farming that [ ... ]

The Sh16million government funded Makueni Agricultural Training Centre is set to be unveiled mid this year and is touted as one of the premier institutions to benefit farmers match theory and practice [ ... ]

Public schools in the country will by 2015 be expected to inculcate agribusiness in their curriculum, as government moves to shift dominant perception of agriculture as an old man's job, counting on y [ ... ]

Farmbizafrica, is a farmers' news website launched two years ago to satisfy the growing thirst for information for farmers who have realised the impressive returns that lie in farming and agribusiness [ ... ]

A hospital in US has built a one of its kind greenhouse in the hospital precincts as it seeks to improve patients' diet and reduce food expenses, offering big lessons to Kenyan hospitals that are stru [ ... ]

Kenya is constructing a Sh27billion fertilizer factory starting next year, expected to cut fertilizer prices by up to 40 percent while bridging the acute supply shortfall that has been blamed for poor [ ... ]

The government will set aside Sh383 billion to transform agriculture into a modern, well paying job in the next three years according to the National Agribusiness Strategy launched by President Mwai K [ ... ]

The weekly Mombasa tea auction was recently named the biggest in the world and is the only centre in the world where teas from different countries are sold alongside each other, making it key to estab [ ... ]

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) has developed an interactive, web-based mapping tool for Sub Saharan African farmers and policymakers that assists them in selecting the best i [ ... ]

The government is launching a Sh2bn national census of Kenyan farmers,which will take one-and-a half-years and survey millions of smallholders, to assist in planning better government services and del [ ... ]

Farmbizafrica was named East Africa's best media in covering youth and ICT in agriculture beating over 700 contestants in a competition organized by New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning [ ... ]

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari) is opening a centre in Turkana, as its first new research centre in three years, as part of a drive to extend and concentrate its research on solutions [ ... ]

Africa has a huge land mass, but little to cultivate. However, new research highlighting the risk of land shortages causing civil wars and food shortages, reports that the means now exist to convert t [ ... ]

Investment firm Pearl Capital Partners (PCP) has launched a Sh2.2 billion fund to finance small businesses in agriculture and agribusiness in East Africa, following research that shows record returns  [ ... ]

New research has found that selecting seed potatoes directly from healthy mother plants can earn farmers a Sh30,000 bonus per hectare, at almost zero cost.   The norm among farmers is to sele [ ... ]

The introduction of a real time early warning system for pastoralists in the arid Turkana county has promised to halve the livestock mortality rate during droughts, offering hope to thousand of pastor [ ... ]

As interest in game farming rises driven by an emerging market for exotic meats and exotic pets, Kenya Wildlife Service has warned that anyone rearing wild animals without a game farming permit risks  [ ... ]

The Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CABI) has launched a global information portal on crop pest and diseases, classified by regions, in a move that could slash farm losses, following  [ ... ]

The Kenyan government is formulating a policy to position the potato as a strategic crop, to increase the country's food security and job creation. The potato is Kenya's second most important food cro [ ... ]

For one 26-year-old law graduate, who thought farmers “deserved better” than gluts of unsold bananas, the answer has been an award-winning venture producing outstandingly nutritious banana flour u [ ... ]

A multi million shilling passion fruit processing factory is seeking to enter contract farming with up to 12000 farmers around Eldoret to meet ballooning demand for the processed fruit in Europe and t [ ... ]

The University of Nairobi has established a climate change department that has crafted a whole syllabus on how regional farmers can best insulate themselves from the vagaries of weather, as reports no [ ... ]

The Kenyan government has signed an agreement with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) in a bid to increase loan financing for farmers countrywide by a further $100m. The six-year Pr [ ... ]

A team of university students from Kenya has developed a software program to help farmers monitor and address weather and soil conditions, as a study by the University of Nairobi reveals that intensiv [ ... ]

A microfinance firm providing rural farmers finance for livestock and farm equipment has reached 11,000 members and now aims to be helping 100,000 farmers by 2016.

Fertiliser producers in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda are to get cheaper access to credit under a fertiliser investment plan prompted by research showing the region's farmers were accessing less than hal [ ... ]

A slowdown in the growth of Kenya's agricultural output in 2011, which rose 1.5 per cent compared with a rise of 6.5 per cent in 2010, has been held up as the key factor dampening overall economic gro [ ... ]

A new technology to mill dried chilli peppers four times faster than flaking by hand and twice as fast as a large mortar & pestle has found its way into Kenya from neighbouring Ethiopia, allowing  [ ... ]

Plants that suffer drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found, opening doors to the potential for developing many more crops better able t [ ... ]

Farmers are being urged to domesticate a tree species that grows wildly in Kenya and whose bark is used as an active ingredient for prostrate cancer medication, to save the tree from imminent extincti [ ... ]

A visit by a Kenyan rice farmer to a Bangladeshi village has changed the lives of fellow rice farmers in Mwea constituency of Central Kenya who have now adopted a low-cost technology for sowing rice s [ ... ]

Farmers in the Metkei area of Keiyo District have built a milk chilling plant that together with changes in feed and better information has transformed the earnings of now 6800 registered farmers in t [ ... ]

A group of Nzoia River farmers is to seek Kenya Bureau of Standards testing for a salt they are processing from a local reed to sell as cooking salt and to local health centres for the salt’s medici [ ... ]

Africa’s wild fruits, from Baobab fruit and Tree Grapes to Tamarindus and wild plums, are emerging as serious crops, spawning commercialisation and supporting hundreds of farmers in arid and semi ar [ ... ]

Technology is reaching increasingly into smaller businesses, with farming soon to gain its own bespoke mobile payment and management system, being showcased by Green Edge Technology at last week’s A [ ... ]

Technology has delivered a sharp lift to returns for the more than 400,000 small-scale tea farmers who sell their tea to the Kenya Tea Development Authority with the roll out of automated weighing sca [ ... ]

Innovators have begun a pilot project introducing India’s own miracle tree, the drought resistant Moringa Olifiera, to Kenyan farmers, in a bid to deliver pay-offs that include leaves that are a sup [ ... ]

The period from September to March is the peak season for tea growing in Kenya and, therefore, a time when extra help is needed to cope with the sudden rush of leaf that needs to be plucked. Tradition [ ... ]

A company providing technical farming solutions is looking for a local partner to run its network in Kenya. Pessl Instruments provides technological monitoring systems to agriculture and already has  [ ... ]

A farmers group in Murang’a district is raising Sh30m to build a banana wine making plant, following its success in creating banana wine brand, Shujaa Power, after a glut of bananas last year forced [ ... ]

As pastoralists in North Rift grapple with the drought that has affected over 12 million East Africans, a new model of paying pastoralists for conserving the ecosystem in reserves and parks is helping [ ... ]

At 37 years, social worker Gerald Ganja is one of 300 farmers from Kilifi County growing the wild plant Aloe Vera and harvesting it twice a year for its lucrative sap. With now more than 160 acres ass [ ... ]

The domestication by farmers living near Kakamega forest of a wild plant that cures hangovers and relieves cold symptoms has transformed the incomes and lives of 460 western Kenyan families, and now d [ ... ]

Each morning as 30-year-old Joram Karanja sets off from his home in Muchatha to work as a stone mason in Ruaka Town, he passes a wooden hut draped in passion fruit that is crammed with dried banana st [ ... ]

The roll-out by Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) of a project promoting the growing of the safflower in Naromoru is seeing smallholders move further into their own oil processing, extracti [ ... ]

Farmers have gone bust over it, KPLC needs it for electricity poles, the Green Belt Movement is fighting against it being planted in the Mau forest, even as the nation cries out for tree replanting: t [ ... ]

Jeremiah Safari Kesi is a disgruntled and bitter man. He feels cheated after seeing his land given to someone else in an accelerated government process that was supposed to bring order in the allocati [ ... ]

Agricultural experts are lauding the steps Kenyan farmers are making in adopting a no tillage system of farming that increases yileds, but warn that failure to implement the system aggressively and qu [ ... ]

A novel, low-cost way of preserving camel meat for up to six months, borrowed from the traditions of the pastoralists and now being commercially practiced in Moyale, has caught the eyes of camel meat  [ ... ]

An overproduction of sweet potatoes by farmers in Kirinyaga district, coupled with poor pay by the dairy sector in the area, have together spawned an innovation that has moved into swift take-off, in  [ ... ]

Livestock’s contribution to the Kenyan economy is two and a half times larger than official estimates, according to a new study based on the data collected in the 2009 national census, which has est [ ... ]

A US-based charity that pledges to double income for Kenya’s poorest farmers has seen its membership increase almost five-fold since 2009.

One Acre Fund, which was founded in 2006 and relies on donor [ ... ]

  Insects like termites and mayflies could become a delicacy in Kenyan homes and address environmental degradation, with local scientists promoting their benefits as a simple, environmentally fr [ ... ]

A new model where individual farmers are trained so that they can themselves train fellow farmers is gaining ground in Kenya, known as farmer to farmer extension (FFE) and being driven by the governme [ ... ]

In a modest, but cost effective method that could save millions who survive on unclean water, women in Kirinyaga district Central Kenya have come up with a way of purifying water using Moringa tree se [ ... ]

Farmers in Central Kenya who have been cultivating strawberries for export have discovered an equally lucrative market for the strawberry leaves they used to discard, but which are now emerging as a c [ ... ]

Kenya is among seven African countries set to benefit from an ambitious programme to create hundreds of productive gardens in schools and communities that show how indigenous plants can generate healt [ ... ]

A popping machine developed using locally available materials by Matayos Youth self help group with the help of a Japanese engineer is creating new snacks out of nutritious, native crops, by popping n [ ... ]

Two years ago, Amiran Kenya launched a small-holders greenhouse kit that is now being used to entice a new generation of “facebook farmers” from among high school and polytechnic students. The Ami [ ... ]

A farmer in Kieni East Division has domesticated a plant traditionally loathed by farmers and is now leading other enterprising farmers in supplying vegetable oil made from the plant to hundreds of fa [ ... ]

An international organisation is funding a breeding research program to deliver quality seeds to 400,000 local farmers, in a drive to get farmers to switch from retained seeds, which are often halving [ ... ]

Kenyan farmers are among the target audience for an ambitious “quick crop reference calendar” developed by the United Nations agriculture agency to give advice on the most appropriate crops, by cl [ ... ]

Behind the Ministry of Agriculture’s National Sericulture Station in Thika lies an ambitious government plan to elevate Kenya into world class silk production alongside global leaders China and Indi [ ... ]

Researchers have identified six genetically modified (GM) orphan crops; they say will shield East African farmers from the effects of climate change and ensure food security. The crops are all pest re [ ... ]

A new breed of agropreneurs, buoyed by good returns from their land, is shifting from rudimentary farming methods to renting and buying sophisticated farming inputs in a bid to further boost their inc [ ... ]

A ground breaking pilot project that seeks to transform traditional fish farming for subsistence into a sustainable business model has been rolled out in Nyakach and Samia Districts of Western Kenya,  [ ... ]

Alongside studies demonstrating that knowledge is the greatest factor in raising agricultural output and farmer incomes, an international agricultural organisation has launched a three-year initiative [ ... ]

Financing for smallholder farmers is growing at its fastest pace ever, according to micro financiers, some of which report a tripling of loans dispersed to agricultural producers in 2010, compared wit [ ... ]

The development of the financial services sector, fast-tracked through international initiatives, is emerging as potentially transformatory for agriculture in East Africa, with up to 40,000 farmers in [ ... ]

A small village in Bura-Tana is home to Samuel Mwangi, who has lived amid a vast expanse of aggressively rambling mesquite bushes, known locally as mathenge, for 20 years. He lived here even before th [ ... ]

Each year, the bumpy 97 hectares of Jamhuri show grounds are host to an agricultural extravaganza of new crops, equipment, buyers, sellers, business options and even fantastical sideshows, for the Nai [ ... ]

The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) is trialling the highest yielding potato seed ever developed for Kenyan farmers, ahead of a planned release in April 2011 of three new potato breeds fo [ ... ]

A two-year initiative by Kenya Forestry Research Institute (KEFRI) to equip small holder farmers to grow seedlings of high value trees and plants is now generating significant incomes and fuelling a s [ ... ]

Harvesting honey from hives hung by wires or in old logs has long been a source of small incomes for farmers in the dry regions, but in the last two years, commercial honey harvesting is taking off ac [ ... ]

Two new higher yielding, virus and nematode resistant hybrid tomato breeds from Spain have been introduced to Kenyan farmers. The two new breeds Tylka F1 and Kilele F1 are targeted at growers using gr [ ... ]

Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) maize breeding division at Muguga has released three new mid-altitude hybrid maize varieties, which they say guarantee farmers five to ten per cent more yi [ ... ]

For long regarded as “poor man’s” food, nine new improved cassava breeds have been released.  These new varieties are high yielding, fast maturing, drought and cassava mosaic virus resistan [ ... ]

Even as the rain pours, we are beset with warnings that as soon as the rain stops we shall return to drought and water shortages. In Nairobi, the tap water rationing still continues. The problem, says [ ... ]

With its yield nine times that of an ordinary banana stalk, the tissue culture banana has changed the fortunes of over half a million Kenyans scattered all over Kenya since its gradual introduction to [ ... ]

Paraded as a leading herbal medicine with a large global trade, the aloe vera plant is now being grown by 1000 Kenyan farmers, and locally produced juices and cosmetics are being sold nation-wide at a [ ... ]