Young Agrirevolutionary:Turning a hobby to a profitable business

The tomato seedlings

Growing vegetables has been a hobby for many and one Andrew Kyuvi is no exception. For as long as he can remember he loved practicing it at his parents’ backyard with Kales (Sukuma Wiki) being his comfort zone as far as family consumption is concerned. Putting the hobby to commercial practice was his weakest part. 

He happened to attend a motivating seminar at a local church where the speaker talked of converting liabilities to assets. After considerable thinking, he decided to take the challenge and act on the available idle land and his free time after office hours.

He settled on organic farming with tomato growing for the start after acquiring the most essential tools:-

·         3000 Ltr water tank (Ksh 20,000.00)

·         1200 Mtr Drip irrigation water pipes (Ksh 15,000.00)

·         Assorted seeds (Ksh 7,000.00)

·         Land preparation and consultancy (Ksh 15,000.00)

The benefits of Tomatoes

Tomato is a known source for vitamin A, C and minerals Iron, Calcium, phosphorus and carbohydrates. The fruit has multiple medicinal values as a gentle stimulant for kidneys, washing off toxins that contaminate the body system. Men can consume raw tomatoes for prevention of prostate cancer. A single tomato tree grown in good fertile soil can bear more fruits than an average family can eat in 3 months

Factors to consider

Growing tomatoes has a lot to do with liking what someone does just as the seed hit the ground. But, the rest has to do with good seeds, plenty of well oxygenated water, and love for both the plants and the job.

“We have many varieties of hybrid tomato seeds in the market and making the selection determines a lot on the output” he advices.

 It’s worth the while for potential farmers to always remember that “Cheap is expensive” when making the selection. Professionalism is very vital at this stage even if it means paying for consultation. They should avoid cheap varieties for they tend to be less resistance to most of the tomato farming challenges.

Other factors to consider when choosing a variety are the market demand and the shelf life. Cal-J is one of the tomato varieties preferred by farmers because of its high market demand and ability to stay for up to 14 days after harvest before rotting.

It’s important to note that tomatoes prefer well drained soils, good amount of calcium and potassium and organic matter with a pH of between 5 and 7.5. They also prefer warm temperatures especially when ripening as well as reduced disease and pest infestation. 

The water tank

All was set to go. He used the open space farming, planted the seeds and watered them at least after every two days and once a week with some organic liquid fertilizer. Within three weeks, they were ready for transplanting. He made sure the soil was well attended to by use of chicken organic waste as manure. No major challenges like pests and diseases attacked his crops which he attributed to the fact that within the locality there were no similar crops hence the absence of both airborne pests and diseases. More so, he gave Organic Weed Control a try where he came to realize that crops like Dhania are able to control insects before they fully attack your cops. In addition, cover crops help a great deal in improving soil structure. This in the long run is advantageous compared to chemical fertilizers.

New Information gap

From his research on the internet, he learnt that the organic farming area needs to be kept free from all types of pesticides and maintaining the soil healthy by using your own compost as fertilizer is the easiest way to do it. When you don’t put lots of fertilizers into the soil, your plants grow as they should and not at hyper speeds which in turn keeps off insects as less nitrogen is released. Healthy soil encourages the development of healthy plants which can withstand the minor damages of pests if they do occur.

“Avoid accumulating large piles of mulch around the area by spreading it evenly around the plants and vegetables as too much mulch retains lots of water which in turn attracts insects and pests to the area” he advises

The tomato plant

After about 3 months the crop is ready for harvesting.Tomatoes have a ready market in Kenya. According to Kyuvi, wholesalers market prefers non greenhouse products which he believes it’s due to the longer shelf life. The best price to the farmer spans about a week after the rains fall and tomatoes grown by irrigation tend to dry when rained on. Wholesalers come for the crop from the source unlike some other crops where you have to look for market vigorously and not forgetting the profits which are quite encouraging.

Record keeping is also vital for modern farming. This helps correct any wrong timing for planting, harvesting and helps the farmer calculate his profits or losses.

To be a good farmer, one needs to regularly update himself/herself with new information on farming practices. Kyuvi does this by researching on the internet, seeking consultants’ advice and attending the annual Nairobi Trade Fair with a target in mind of what he wishes to learn from fellow farmers. After attending the last year’s fair, he has decided of expanding the crops variety to include cabbages, Dhania, and onions and keeping rabbits in the farms.

And with each dawn his spirit gets awakened as he finds farming quite an interesting activity. He sees no reason why the youths should not be part of the new global revolution that is farming. I couldn’t agree no more!

 Or do you personally see any?

Overcoming the twin challenges of youth unemployment and food insecurity: what role for agricultural employment?

Blog post by  Dr. Jennifer Leavy  a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, UK.

Conducting greenhouses checks in Mombasa :Photo Courtesy Emmie

 In the contemporary context of profound and significant global change, youth unemployment levels have hit historic highs (ILO, 2012a,b,c; OECD, 2012)[1], and despite improved undernourishment estimates in the two decades to 2007, one in eight people suffered chronic undernourishment in 2010-2012 - one in four in sub-Saharan Africa - according to the recent United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) State of food insecurity and hunger in the world  report (2012).

Add to the twin challenges of youth unemployment and hunger and food insecurity, an apparent ageing of the farm population – the average age of farmers is now in the range of late-50s to early 60s across the globe from The United States to Europe, to Africa, to Australia.On the surface the answer seems simple enough: encourage young people to farm and we solve three ‘problems’ in one fell swoop.

Agriculture will provide under- and un-employed young people with employment and income, this in turn will provide the food we need via increased production, and ensures farming is passed from one generation to the next. This message adds yet another  framing of young people as the saviours of undernutrition to the many other framings and narratives that place young people in the role of saviours (of the agriculture sector) or ‘sinners’ (young people are too lazy for agriculture, idle, unemployed)[2].

It seems obvious – if more than a little instrumentalist in approach. Of course the answer is not as simple as that.

Strong messages emerging from primary research with young people in rural areas under the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project – a four-year study across ten developing countries - and from the Future Agricultures Consortium  youth theme, focusing on young people and agricultural policy processes in sub-Saharan Africa, shed light on young people’s attitudes towards agriculture and the likelihood of being able to address food security concerns via engagement of young people with the sector.  Some of these attitudes include:

• Most young people have no interest in agriculture, not within their own visions for their future. This is often echoed by their parents. By agriculture, people invariably think of farming: back-breaking work, low input, 365 days a year for little or low return. Those who do see a future for themselves in farming believe it needs to be ‘smarter’, more productive and more reliable. More modern?

• Agriculture is not considered to be delivering the types of lifestyles and status that young people desire and expect. These are important dimensions of the attractiveness, or otherwise, of agriculture (invariably farming) as an occupation. Agriculture is not considered able to deliver via incomes and working conditions the kinds of lifestyles young people need, expect and desire in the 21^st century, lifestyles that are ever more visible thanks to revolutionary advances in communications technology that is accessible to (almost) all, even people living in the most remote rural areas. In this respect, agriculture is regarded as a poor person’s activity, going beyond living standards to people’s sense of pride and self-respect. These are important dimensions of wellbeing[3] and take us beyond narrow, one-dimensional conceptions of what it means to be poor, marginalised and disadvantaged. If agriculture is not able to deliver either the desired living standards or the prospects for upward mobility, then the likelihood of attracting young people into or retaining them in the sector is low.

• Education is a double-edged sword. Higher education levels overall mean that young people are being educated kinds of agriculture on offer. With higher levels of education they seek jobs with higher skill levels than those of the smallholder farming activities that most face. But higher unemployment levels, especially among the youth, suggest that work and education are failing as key routes by which people move out of poverty, and as crucial mechanisms linking economic growth to poverty reduction. More children than ever go to school, but what they learn appears to be far removed from the skills needed in the 21^st century (UNESCO, 2012; World Bank, 2012). This is as much true for agriculture sector skills as any other.

• Agriculture is often seen as a last resort, something you do if you fail: in school,  as migrants in town or abroad, in non-farm businesses. Or may not even be an option at all – pressure on resources, especially land scarcity, pose serious barriers to entry for young people. This is highlighted sharply by Getnet Tadele and Asrat Ayalew Gella’s work in Ethiopia, and is not peculiar to this setting. This is a recurring theme across the ten countries in the Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility project. An apparent sense of insecurity around farming, related to unpredictable climate variability, volatile food prices, rising costs, further acts as a deterrent.

These emergent findings suggest policymakers need to think beyond the conception of (young) people as units of labour to be placed in jobs. To engage and empower young people in agriculture, the sector needs to be able to address young people’s aspirations and their expectations, and offer potential for social mobility. Using the language of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and FAO, rural employment needs to be ‘decent work’[4] – but as the importance to people of self-respect and status highlights, it needs also to address broader conceptions of human wellbeing. Farming needs a change of image to get over entrenched, though not unfounded, beliefs that it involves dirty, laborious work at low skill levels for low returns. And we need to reassess what we mean by ‘farmer’ in the 21^st century. The broader agri-food framing called for by the Future Agricultures Consortium can go some way towards this, potentially recasting agriculture as an aspirational career choice by highlighting opportunities throughout the industry.

Re-blogged from the Global Food for Thought website. Find the link to the original article HERE  

 

Recap of My Blogging Journey

Dear Readers

 
Thank You Photo:Courtesy Navjot Sharma

Its been almost 17 months since i created this blog and set out on a course to bridge the information gap surrounding agriculture, research and use of new and upcoming ICTs focusing on agriculture. Many a things , both nice and challenging have occured which has only made this blogging journey worth continuing. Your presence as evidenced by everyday s traffic rise, comments, and constant sharing of the posts in other social media channels has contributed to making the blogging journey more of a success. I owe you big time for this.


Well, I have received a couple of emails from readers suggesting some of the topics they would love to see featured on this blog. Some of them happen to be students in colleges seeking out companies where they could get placements for their internships,others on agricultural policies, new and applicable technologies in the field of agriculture and still more on step by step details on poultry keeping, urban and peri urban farming amongst many others. Well the list is endless and i am more than happy to offer a hand for each and every one of my readers in their area of interest.

In the coming weeks, i will be aggregating information concerning the same.

Well stay put as we set the ball rolling!

PS: Of late i have been involved in too much of social media reporting and hence once in a while i will be posting pieces on social media

Alternative ways to food production: The right to food approach

 Hello readers!

 My latest piece for the Digital Development debates  February 2013 edition under the right to food focuses on alternative ways to food security, hunger and food production with special focus on  urban farming. Check it out! 
 

 Greenhouses in the Backyard
Digital Development Debates
February 2013 Hunger  Edition
Emmie Kio


Urban farming in Kenya has moved beyond just being a poor man's profession. Can it even provide a solution to looming food insecurity?

On a stroll through Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, one's eyes are drawn to a myriad of agricultural activities taking place. From a distance, greenhouses seem to sprout from any available piece of land and backyards. And that is certainly not all: As the greenhouses disappear, backyard vegetable farming, rabbit keeping, cattle rearing, fish farming and even pig farming sets in; and tassels of maize grown at roadside farms wave at you as you pass. This is, in a nutshell, what experts have called urban farming or urban agriculture.

According to the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security, urban agriculture refers to the cultivation of plants and raising of animals within and around cities. It may be right inside a city – "intra-urban" – or at the outskirts of a city – "peri-urban". The major crops grown include tomatoes, beans, maize, sweet potatoes, kale (locally known as sukuma wiki), African leafy vegetables, arrowroot, cowpeas and Irish potatoes. The major livestock kept includes cows, goats, sheep, rabbits, pigs and poultry.

Urban agriculture is primarily distinguished from rural agriculture as we know it by the way it operates. It is characterised by labour drawn from the urban population, the use of treated or even untreated waste water for irrigation, and its need to be incorporated in urban policy planning.

A remedy against poverty and hunger
In Kenya, poverty and food insecurity are just two of the many development challenges the government has been trying to eradicate since independence. Urban areas are in no way spared the problems of their rural neighbours, and bear the extra burden of a high cost of living. Rapid population growth in these urban areas, either as a result of urbanization or births, accelerates these issues.

"Urban areas are in no way spared
the problems of their rural neighbours,
and bear the extra burden of a high cost of living."

Take Nairobi, for instance, the capital city, where the annual growth rate is currently 4.1 per cent. This has led to an increase in food insecurity here, especially among low-income earners and informal settlers. And with the population projected to rise to 61 million as of 2030, with a higher percentage in urban areas, new ways of feeding the population need be devised.
Urban agriculture seems to be a viable option, as it can utilize limited land area to yield quality produce. This is because it can incorporate technologies like sack gardening, which uses very minimal land space and water while ensuring maximum produce. Such approaches are particularly important to informal settlements where the available land is quite limited and clean water for irrigation is a scarce commodity.

(Read the Full story here )

Youth would embrace farming if parents stopped clinging to land

By Patrick Mbataru

Young people are increasingly finding agriculture appealing. Unfortunately, they face enormous problems, and that is where policy makers must step in.

Most people under 40 years have moved away from on-farm activities. Actual production has been left to the parents, mostly aged 60 years or more.

The dichotomy of labour roles in the countryside, between the young and old, mirrors the emerging orientation of economic productivity away from basic farming. Young people are engaging more in the profitable stages of the value chain, mostly in value adding activities like processing, packaging, brokerage and transport.

 In fact, government policies targeting young farmers should focus more on value adding activities. Yet the grave problem is the gripping control of farm production by ageing parents.

Cultural attitudes make it difficult for young people to participate in long-term agricultural production. Parents in many places do not allow eligible children full land rights, mainly because it is considered a bad omen to “be inherited” when one is still living.

Many parents fear that if they give land to their children, they will be abandoned as their children exploit the land. Parents therefore cling to land even in their twilight years as financial insurance, yet this greatly limits productivity.

Many parents are growing too old for meaningful agricultural production. They lack modern skills and the entrepreneurial attitudes necessary to enhance quantity and quality in the face of diminishing acreage.Watching them labour out with hoes and pangas does not inspire much hope in meeting food security. Besides lack of production skills, they may not understand the intricacies of the global agribusiness value chains.

To compound the problem, parents in Kenya actually socialise their children away from land. They educate them so that they can move out of what they consider farm “slavery”.

To many young people in central Kenya, for example, coffee is the symbol of rural drudgery. Few youths want to be associated with the rigours of coffee production — the disciplined husbandry, the grading that starts during picking in the rainy season, to the pulping factory — only to be paid peanuts at the end of the year. The glittering city is more alluring.

And that is not all. There is the punishing waiting for payment. Even if the younger generation would have the land rights, few would have the patience to wait for months to be paid. Most prefer to cultivate “three-month-crops”, like tomatoes that guarantee prompt payment.

This is the appropriate industry model for the highly fragmented rural firms. Being more educated and exposed, young people are aware of the folly of blind production. Their mantra is “you produce what you can sell” and not tie to selling what you have produced. Luckily for them, wealth creation in Kenya is steadily leaning towards off-farm activities.

Globalisation and liberalisation have gradually opened up international markets for high value agro-products. Emerging issues related to traceability, quality control, certification and even carbon crediting need a whole new schooling on the way we do agriculture.

A ballooning middle class, said to now stand at 32 per cent of the population, offers a huge market for quality agro-products. Note the increasing space for greens and agro-products in major supermarkets. Any supply manager in these supermarkets will tell you that a major constraint is to get reliable suppliers, both in quantity and quality.

There is an emerging market opportunities for carrot, wheat grass, cabbage juice and millet-ugali as a new health consciousness takes root. The new drive based on organic foods represents another wealth-creating opportunity.

The good news is that the older land-clinging generation is thinning out. In the high output highlands of Central, land is slowly being released through natural attrition, leaving their more entrepreneurial children to take over. Many young farmers also lease such land.

By Dr Mbataru teaches agribusiness at the School of Agriculture, Kenyatta University (pmbataru@gmail.com)

Reblogged from the Daily Nation Wednesday January 23, 2013

Call for applications for poultry incubator loans

The Youth Enterprise Development Fund is providing youth with egg hatching incubators on credit. Young Kenyans aged 18-34 may apply as individuals or in groups.

Specifications of the Incubator

• Has a capacity to hatch 528 eggs
• Is a fully computerized automatic hatching machine
• Has a 95% hatching rate
• Automated temperature and humidity control
• Is capable of hatching all types of eggs
• Occupies little space (0.98 x 0.74 x 1.06M)

Benefits of the credit facility

• No interest will be charged on loan
• Friendlier repayment period and monthly instalments
• Warranty: 3 years for spare parts and 2 years on labour
• Marketing and linkages facilitation
• Training on handling of incubator at no extra cost
• Linkage to livestock extension officers/veterinarians

Loan details

Cost of Incubator	Sh. 198,600
Management fee: 5% (payable upfront)	Sh.     9,930
Loan amount:	Sh. 208,530
Monthly installment for a period of 36 months	Sh. 5,517 (Sh. 198,600÷36 months)

Grace period: 3 months

Mode of repayment: By direct deposit to the YEDF bank accounts quoting the code.

MPESA Service

Eligibility: The applying group/individual must:

• Have electricity and power back up in case of power outages
• In case of a group, 70% of members must be youth and all group officials must be 18-34 years
• Individual youth borrower must be 18-34 years.
• Show evidence of ability to raise 5% of the cost of the hatchery, to be paid upfront

Group applicants must submit:

• Duly filled  loan application form
• Group’s registration documents
• Copies of IDs for ALL the members
• Duly filled form by guarantors (details of acceptable guarantors is indicated  in the application form)
• Group minutes authorizing the application.
• Evidence of operating a group bank account for 3 months
• Extract of recent business records.

Individual applicants must submit:

• Duly filled  loan application form
• Copy (ies) of IDs for ALL the owner (s)

• Duly filled form by two guarantors(details of acceptable guarantors is indicated in the application form)

• Recent bank statement for those already in business and an extract of recent business records
• Or recent certified copies of bank statement for individual borrowers

Those already engaging in poultry production as well as those who are keen on undertaking the business are encouraged to apply.

For applications forms, click here .

Find the original post here  www.youthfund.go.ke/index.php/downloads/cat_view/55-incubator-loan-application-forms

New agriculture laws will now end colonial-style farming

President Kibaki’s assent to three key agricultural bills sets the stage for the most far-reaching changes in the sector since independence. 

 By consenting to The Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food Authority Bill 2012, The Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Bill 2012, and the Crops Bill 2012, he now sets the stage for the consolidation of functions of a number of allied ministries, the scrapping or merging of non-core state corporations and the commercialisation of profit-making ones. 

His signature has unified the 131 laws that have governed the sector and essentially removed from the law books the ubiquitous Agriculture Act, an 80-year old piece of legislation long blamed for the dismal performance of agriculture. The colonial regime created the statute to promote European farming at the expense of indigeneous Kenyans. 

The new laws, passed by Parliament during its final sittings, seek to transform farming into a professional, well-paying, internationally competitive and attractive to the youth. The agricultural sector is to drive Vision 2030. 

Depending on the preference of the next Government in setting its Cabinet, the ten allied ministries can now be collapsed into one or two, as envisaged in the initial drafts by the Agricultural Sector Coordination Unit , a multi-ministerial agency that has overseen reforms in the sector.
The ten subsectors are: Agriculture; Livestock; Land; Fisheries Development; Environment and Mineral Resources; Water Resources and Irrigation; Regional Development Authorities; Cooperative Development; Forest and Wildlife; and Development of Northern Kenya and Other Arid Areas.
Among parastatals facing the axe is the 63-year old Cereals and Sugar Finance Corporation. It is in debts, and its operation has often been questioned by Parliament. In fact, its liquidation has been inexplicably pending for over ten years.

Others are Sisal Board, Cotton Board, National cereals and Produce board, Coffee Board, Tea Board, Kenya Sugar Board, Pyrethrum Board, and Coconut Development Authority, Kenya Plant Plant Health Inspectorate Service, and Horticultural Crops Development Authority. 

Their functions will be taken over by a new powerful body, the Agriculture, Livestock and Food Authority. The Dairy Board, Kenya Meat Commission, Pig Industry Board, Pests Control Board, Kenya National Artificial Insemination Centre, will collapse into a Livestock Authority.
The Kenya Agricultural Research Institute will merge with other research institutions, including Kenya Triponomias Research Institute, Kenya Forestry Research Institute , Coffee Research Foundation, Tea Research Foundation, Kenya Sugar Research Foundation to form The Kenya Agricultural Research Organisation. 

The agricultural sector comprises over 60 parastatals. Already, reforms implemented in the last ten years have seen about 20 parastatals scrapped. “Some of the parastatals reproduce the work of others,” says Dr Sally Kosgei, Minister for Agriculture. 

Take the example of the Cereals and Sugar Finance Corporation; established by Parliament to raise money to lend to Government agencies for the purchase and production of grains and cereals. It is still in business despite the fact that the Government declared it insolvent about ten years ago.
“The corporation is dormant and technically insolvent,” said the Auditor General’s report 2008/9. As early as 1976, Parliament had singled it out among the corrupt parastatals. 

According to the new laws, profit-making parastatals will run as companies. “Every (parastatal) that carried out any commercial activity with the objective of making profit have twelve months to transform into a company and be registered as a company under the Companies Act so as to enable (it) carry on commercial activity.” 

The new law s discount any fears about job losses. “Any person who, at the commencement of this Act, is a member of staff of a former institution shall, on the appointed day, become a member of staff of ALFA on the same or improved terms and conditions of service as may be specified by the Cabinet Secretary”, the Act states.

Reblogged from the Star newspaper http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/article-103423/new-agriculture-laws-will-now-end-colonial-style-farming