Growing Extension Knowledge: Zack Matere Way

Its a lazy Monday  morning and to brighten it up i decide to go through Jamila (a co-founder of mFARM) Facebook timeline to see what is entailed there. That is where my day brightens as i get to stumble upon Zack Matere,(Find him on Google +  (HERE ) who apparently is an agricultural information grower.I send him a friend request and within a few minutes he does accept it.


This is just how viral agriculture can be! :) His is a story  of Connecting Villages

Zack's facebook photos

Apparently his story is quite viewed on You Tube(See his documentary towards the end of this blog post ) having garnered over a million views. So you might be wondering at this point what it is in reality he grows.


Zack is a farmer from Eldoret who realizes his potato crop  is infected with a certain disease/pest and solutions are far away even to the area agricultural officer. He decides to do a Google search on the cause and its there that he finds ants as the menace and the solution to the predicament being wood ash sprinkling at the base of each potato stem.Such an eco-friendly solution,don't you like it too? Let it be known that the potato yield increased and he got his bumper harvest reward. He later got a connection with Kenya Potato Growers Association on where to sell his produce.


Well the internet affair never ended there. 


Zack founded the Leo Network of notice boards with the aim of reaching and interacting with many farmers as possible in the community. He uses the boards  to share farming information with  his fellow small scale farmers by pinning agricultural texts,illustrated photos,jobs and agricultural events. He recognizes that the lack of access to internet amongst his fellow farmers shouldn't be a hindrance to better farming practices.


This is how the a sample of the  Leo Notice board looks like

Zach's facebook photos

Indeed information is power. Here is  Zack's 2 minute documentary on Growing Knowledge!

I know of many youths who have done agricultural related courses and yet they can't, offer the little advice they've got with farmers in their region.I hope Zack's work touches you and you realize its never too late to farm or to share extension advice!