October 2021

By George Munene  Through the use of rip­per ploughs in con­ser­va­tion ag­ri­cul­ture farm­ers are able to halve their pro­duc­tion cost while ad­vantaging them­selves in ways not ac­cess­ible to farm­ers prac­ti­cing tra­di­tional con­ven­tional ag­ri­cul­ture. “In con­ven­tional ag­ri­cul­ture, land pre­par­a­tion be­fore plant­ing en­tails first plough­ing, this in West­ern Kenya costs a farmer Sh3000 for every acre. This

“The farmg­ate price of Grade 1 gar­lic is cur­rently Sh150 per kilo­gram, the spice ma­tures in four months and from an acre a farmer can har­vest at least six tons. This means from just one acre a farmer can rake in Sh1­mil­lion. This makes gar­lic farm­ing a clearly prof­it­able ag­ri­cul­tural en­deavor,” says Stan­ley Gichuki, the

By George Munene Through the Kaka­mega Nat­ural Forest Catch­ment Con­ser­va­tion Or­gan­iz­a­tion, KAN­FCCO, Mukombero farm­ers in Kaka­mega County have signed a deal to sup­ply 100 met­ric tonnes of the herbal root to Ger­many every year. With a ready mar­ket se­cured, KAN­FCCO—which cur­rently has about 360 farm­ers in its books—is re­cruit­ing grow­ers of Mukombero (Mon­dia whitei) as well as other medi­cinal tuber plants like Maruku or lesser

By George Munene Meru farm­ers are mak­ing premium earn­ings from the dif­fer­ence in their rainy sea­son, which means they can de­liver pota­toes when they are most scarce and prices are highest. Whilst in most parts of the coun­try long rains run from April to late May those of Kibiri­chia, Meru County last from Oc­to­ber to

The hy­brid Super Napier grass is amongst the fast­est grow­ing an­imal fod­der crops at­tain­ing a height of 2.4 meters in just 60 days after plant­ing, grow­ing to 3.7 meters in an­other month’s time when it is ready for its first har­vest.  Dubbed the ‘king of Napi­ers’ an acre of super Napier or Pakchong1 yields 180-200 tons of bio­mass