By John Matava Green maize is fetching premium pricing, at 16,000 maize plants per acre, each with double cobs selling at Sh8 to Sh10 each, and it is harvested at four months, compared to six months for dry grains that sell for less. Related News: Farmer resorts to green maize, making four times profit as […]
FarmBiz TV: Green maize offers fast route to harvest as shortage looms Read More »
By Lydia Gichuki As Kenya has moved into the double restriction of a dusk-to-dawn curfew, and the lockdown and banning of movement in and out of Nairobi and other cities, food transporters have been classed as essential services, meaning they can enter and exit the lock-downed cities and travel at night. But how can farmers
By George Munene CCTV cameras keeping an eye on livestock and vegetables might seem like overkill, but for Caleb Karuga, the once TV journalist and always farmer, who lives by his patented #UkulimaSioUshamba, it makes perfect sense. On his parents 3-acre farm at Ishuga, Nanyuki, and his own farm in Kikuyu, the electronic ‘big brother’
Journalist farmer pioneers CCTV-surveyed farming, reports jump in produce and connection Read More »
By Christine Mwaura Kenya’s coffee production and yields increased in 2019 following the government and counties’ distribution of free tree seedlings. But the biggest cause of farmers’ flight from coffee has been prices too low for smallholders’ survival. However, value addition, by processing beans on the farm, can lift the value of small-hold coffee crops
Fact sheet: Coffee pulping to lift smallholder earnings 6x Read More »
By Fredrique Achieng Capsicum farmer Evelyne Mwangi has seen her income fall by nearly three-quarters in recent weeks as the corona epidemic has stopped flights to Asia that were carrying produce to two of her main markets, China and South Korea. Previously, Evelyne would earn around Sh17m per shipment, after deductions, but this has drastically
By Jenny Luesby So the numbers are finally coming in: we are going to kill 180x more people per day with the current Covid-19 measures than are dying from the disease itself, says the World Food Programme (WFP) – as in, 300,000 people a day, in over 30 nations of which Kenya is one, compared
Fast action needed to head off ‘biblical’ famine Read More »
By John Matava A farmer is raising Kuroiler hybrid chicks from a day old to 21 days, when she harvests them. Raising a maximum of 6,000 backyard chicks in 21 days, she sells each at Sh250, making more than a million per harvest. Related News: How to stop your one day old chicks from dying
FarmBiz TV: Chicken farmer earns Sh1m in 21 days rearing chicks Read More »
By George Munene Smallholder farmers who produce more than 70 per cent of the country’s food are now locked out of the Nairobi markets and suffering tumbling rural prices as a result. The sudden collapse in prices and supply chains last week saw Kaari, a pig farmer at Chogoria, Tharaka Nithi, calling into Meru Fm
70% of Kenyan food locked out of Nairobi, forcing rural prices to nosedive Read More »
By John Matava The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization has launched a new soya bean variety SB19 that is drought tolerant and matures within 3 months with twice the yields at 800kgs to 1000kgs per acre worth Sh180,000 per harvest. Related News: These Soya beans can earn you Sh170,000 per acre in three months
FarmBiz TV: Kalro launches drought tolerant soya bean variety (SB19) doubling earnings. Read More »
By Jolene Njambi More than 320 of 400 Kenyans surveyed by SMS pollster GeoPoll are worried they will not have enough food to eat amidst the Coronavirus outbreak. The survey, which gathered responses from more than 4,500 Africans across 12 nations, found that Kenyans’ concern over an impending food crisis is almost as great a
Poll shows Kenyans worried about Coronavirus food shortages Read More »