By Lyzzie Owade

A Kisumu community group has taught families to grow dry-season food in sacks, buckets and even old jeans, after finding that children were too hungry to attend the support sessions it first set up during Covid.

The Ziba Pengo Initiative began in 2020 as a small children’s group in Kano, Kisumu County, but It reached only 10 children before collapsing.

Children weren’t coming because they weren’t getting enough food, leaving them tired and hungry, said group member Mercy Lagoh. 

Kano “is always dry if it’s not raining and nothing can do well in that area,” leading many families to give up on farming, she said.

So the group refocused on how families could produce  more food. “We train them in innovative farming, since they cannot afford water for irrigation, but they can do a kitchen garden, which might take only one to two buckets,” said Mercy.

The team now teaches residents door to door or gathers groups of 10 to 15 and shows them how to grow vegetables in sacks, old buckets, containers and even old jeans. For households without space, Mercy said, old jeans can be hung on trees so “no one complains when it comes to practising kitchen gardening.”

“The training takes five days and each farmer then decides when to start. During the training we take them to our farm to see what we have and how we are doing it,” she said.

Related news:

Young mother cuts vegetable costs by 80% with home kitchen garden

Youth pays school fees by creating kitchen garden on family plot

Ministry of Agriculture gives kitchen garden kits to a million households to create food security

First-time growers then receive free seedlings of spinach, sukuma wiki, onions, black nightshade and tomatoes. Families later buy more seedlings at Sh5 each if they want to expand. 

“When the crop has been attacked by pests, we train them to use ash or animal manure for pest control,” said Mercy.

The initiative has now equipped 250 residents, including 20 who are selling vegetables in the local market and to neighbours, with extra buyers linked to them when they are available. Those selling now earn at least Sh300 a day.

“What makes me the most happy is that when I am now walking around the village, it is green and you can see the change,” she said.

Are you a farmer looking to grow the most profitable crop on your farm, with or without irrigation. Use FarmBizAfrica’s HarvestMAX on https://harvestmax.farmbizapps.com and it will tell you in less than a minute what the highest income-earning crops are for your weather, soil type and this season, based on your seasonal weather forecast. Don’t make weather losses ever again, and more than triple your income.ther forecast. Don’t make weather losses ever again, and more than triple your income.