September 2021

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Meru potato farmers increase yields fourfold through conservation agriculture

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By George Munene By employing conservation agriculture in growing potatoes, farmers across Meru County have been able to more than quadruple their output while lowering the cost of inputs and reducing weeding frequency. According to The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), Conservation Agriculture (CA) is a farming system that keeps soil …

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EU project trains, links young farmers to export markets for in demand crops

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By George Munene The Farm Africa Growing Futures project is helping over 4,000 young farmers in western Kenya acquire the skills to grow vegetables that are in high demand then linking them to domestic and international markets. The funding is focused on western Kenya where 80 per cent of the unemployed population is under 35, …

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ABE chillies offer farmers sweet returns

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By George Munene African Birds Eye chilli farm­ing for the ex­port mar­ket is as prof­it­able a farm­ing ven­ture as you will find. Des­pite this, it re­mains un­tapped with sup­ply hardly scratch­ing the sur­face of mar­ket de­mand. “We have had to un­for­tu­nately turn down many African Birds Eye chilli ex­port­ers; one was seek­ing 7,000kgs of ABE …

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Kenyan farmers tap into foreign nationals snail appetite

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In 2007, Rose­mary Odinga, the daugh­ter of former Prime Min­is­ter Raila Odinga was the only snail farmer li­censed by the Kenya Wild­life Ser­vice (KWS) to raise the slimy creatures. However, the ven­ture has been on the rise among Kenyan farm­ers due to in­creas­ing de­mand brought about by the in­flux of West African and Asian na­tion­als …

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Kitui mango farmer doubles harvest through grafting

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A Kitui County farmer is en­joy­ing im­proved an­nual yields from graf­ted man­goes in his one acre farm from 500 fruits per tree to 1000 fruits after abandon­ing grow­ing local vari­et­ies of man­goes Stephen Musy­oka who used to grow tra­di­tional vari­ety of man­goes is one of the be­ne­fi­ciar­ies of free train­ings on graf­ted man­goes offered by …

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Muranga French bean farmers balloon incomes with group contract farming

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By George Munene In Kandara, Muranga county, 25 farmers, who banded together as Golden Greengrowers to produce beans on contract for export, have been able to increase their farming acreage, benefit from economies of scale, and supply exporter Total Fresh with 8 to 10 tonnes a week of vanilla French beans. The group, which is …

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How to reduce pig feed costs with homemade sweet potato silage

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Farmers rearing pigs can reduce the cost of production by a substantial percentage through adopting home-made feeds using readily available raw materials such as sweet potato vines which were formerly trashed after the harvesting of the tubers. According to a 2017 research on the importance of sweet potato in small-scale farming systems in Uganda by …

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Extension network helping farmers farm & market their crop

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By George Munene The Farmer Ser­vice Cen­ter is made up of a net­work of over 300 ag­ri­cul­tural ex­ten­sion work­ers in 12 counties that help farm­ers with the en­tire farm to mar­ket value chain.  Star­ted in Janu­ary 2020, through its ex­tens­ive net­work FSC helps farm­ers source ready mar­kets for their crops be­fore they even begin work …

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How farmers are employing hemp’s high to heal soils

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By George Munene Sunn Hemp is a nitrogen-fixing green manure legume cover crop that organically improves soil fertility and biodiversity while serving as a high protein animal feed supplement with 19 per cent crude protein.  Samuel Munge, a fodder and cover crop expert at U-FARM Holdings explains that farmers who have incorporated Sunn Hemp, Crotalaria juncea, into …

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