Crops

Cutting off onion stems one inch or two to three centimeters from the bulb instead of leaving them up to eight centimeters long has seen a farmer reduce his onion drying time and become a darling for brokers lifting his earnings by 23 per cent. Edwin Mwangangi, a young onion farmer at Katani, Syokimau, today […]

A Bomet farmer has doubled his sorghum harvest from growing traditional seeds to a hybrid. After reading FarmBizAfrica’s piece on April 13, 2018, (Beer maker launches new high yielding sorghum variety that can withstand harsh weather) Weldon Korir began growing Advanta’s Hybrid 23012 which has increased his output from 20 two kilogram tins or gorogoros

A biogas maker is transforming the economy of Dunga Beach in Kisumu by using water hyacinth to produce biogas that powers a communal kitchen, commercial chicken brooder, and fish dryer. Every day Dominic Kahumbu, the CEO of Flexi Biogas, and two of his employees take a boat into Lake Victoria not to fish but to

The iCow Soil Advocacy programme is pursuing the change of farming practices by equipping agronomists and trainers in how to restore soil to lift smallholders’ yields. As a reporter with a background in agriculture, I enrolled in the programme to gain firsthand insight—and it turned out to be transformative. I first learned about the programme

Hand-held soil scanners are reducing the cost of soil tests for farmers by more than half and the time it takes to get their soil test information from weeks to just 10 minutes. Introduced by the Dutch Company AgroCares, the handheld scanner gives farmers an on-the-spot report of their soil and recommends what fertilisers they

The rise of jam, juices and foods from gathered prickly pears could now develop into widespread cactus farming, with farmers in China’s arid areas now producing nearly 3 tonnes a hectare of foods and feeds with almost no rain by planting and harvesting the apple cactus. The farmers are harvesting 2.8 tonnes a hectare of

Growing jack beans, farmers get a double shot in high protein food for their families and a doubling of the yield of their other crops as the bean restores health to rapidly degrading soils by cooling the soil, providing a soil erosion stopper, and adding green manure. Every year African soils lose up to 60kg

Solar dryers, affordable for groups of farmers, are slashing drying times by 48 hours saving 36 per cent of after-harvest crop losses. Marketed in East Africa by GrainPro, Solar Bubble Dryers dry grains, pulses, and vegetables even under rain in a protective bubble in just two to eight hours rather than the typical 54 hours

Maize storage bag manufacturers are helping farmers avoid half of after-harvest losses using revolutionary rodent-repelling bags that keep off the two main thieves of stored grains;  insects, and rats. In Kenya’s main maize-growing regions, rodents were second to small insects as the main causes of farmer losses after harvest. The country loses an estimated half

Farmers are turning to an ancient technology to return potassium to their soil on evidence that they are losing 10 per cent of the mineral which is vital to plant growth after each harvest. Potassium being used up far quicker than it can be returned to the soil presents Africa’s agriculture with a disaster in