Enable 1500 Kenyan Rural Farmers for Agribusiness

INTRODUCTION:

The Mango Tree Orphan Trust Fund-Kenya has initiated a workable ambitious initiative to boost the livelihoods of 1500 rural farmers through agribusiness. We have launched and continue to implement several agribusiness initiatives with the goal of the project fundraising being $50,000 with $15,675 realized.

The organization organized and rolled out the following activities for the latest quarter:

I.       FARMING ACTIVITIES

The organization, in collaboration with registered local farmers, county and national government agricultural extension officers, and other agribusiness institutions, is undertaking a number of agribusiness projects in the Homabay and Migori counties. The organization executed the following specific agribusiness projects:

a)     Apiculture

The Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust-Kenya has distributed 40 beehives to farmers that have all attracted bee colonies and have done well. There were plans to carry out the first bee harvest during the month of September 2020, but due to the government's restriction of the dark to dawn curfew that hinders movement and thus makes it impossible to carry out harvesting as this is the best time when the bees are docile. However, eight (8) farmers risked the situation and made some harvests during the period July-September 2020 with the processing of honey still in progress. As part of the transition to other disadvantaged households, the farmers decided that the office could subtract 10% of the total production per harvest. COVID-19 has had an effect on bee farmers' training, as farmers cannot gather for sessions.

Way forward;

• Carry out more continuous training to all farmers so that they have information on how to domesticate bees in the event of any emergency.
• Identifying key farmers among themselves to be further trained in controls on hives, harvesting, and general management.
• Plan for harvesting early next month and processing of honey as soon as the lifting of the limitation of the curfew hour.
• Deduct 10% of the proceeds and purchase more hives for new households.
• Identify new households that will benefit from the proceeds (pass on program).

b)    Aquaculture

With both the dam liner and earth ponds, aquaculture is one of the projects that have been functioning for a long time, with more focus now being on fish cages as it has a faster return compared to the ponds.

As a demo, the TMT-K model farm supported farmers with on-site fishpond management training and feeding skills. Due to the better outcome of the model farm ponds obtained during harvesting, this has boosted the farmer's morale. For the period ending July-September 2020, we restocked the ponds with fingerlings.

Sustainability of the ponds

Two (2) farmers that initially graduated, are now self-reliant and doing well with the project over the period under review. The farmers are still struggling to make ends meet with the project, despite the numerous challenges experienced due to the global warming impacts resulting in flooding and causing the wash-away and submergence of ponds. Ten (10) other farmers who had their savings with the cooperative are now in the process of replenishing the ponds, although the feeding challenge remains because the initial income cannot manage the ponds completely.

Reviving of the ponds

TMT is working on the installation of new dam liner ponds for already identified farmers as the affected farmers revive their ponds, where they dig new ponds on higher grounds to mitigate the effects of floods.

Fish cage

The fish cage project supports 58 beneficiaries with 30 caregivers from Kiwa Island and 71 beneficiaries from Nyandiwa village. The Community Service Volunteers assist in feeding and management with a scheduled weekly visit to the community done for onsite training and monitoring purposes. The livelihood project has organized and supported the community in different projects including:

With 30 caregivers from Kiwa Island and 71 beneficiaries from Nyandiwa village, the fish cage project supports 58 recipients. With a scheduled weekly visit to the community for onsite training and monitoring purposes, the Community Service Volunteers assist with feeding and management of the fish cages. The livelihood project has organized and supported the community in various projects, including

• Engaging their children during this period of COVID-19 in village learning schools to prevent idleness.
• Involving both volunteers and caregivers in agricultural projects, such as vegetable planting within the island, to promote food security in the island's missing vegetable/green line.

Way forward

• Follow-up and evaluation of progress made by fish farmers and installation of new dam liner ponds
• More training for farmers in the management of ponds and fish cages.
• Evaluations of Household Vulnerability (Nyandiwa group)
• Sale of mature fish, repair and replenishment of cages of fish
• Train recipient farmers on group savings and loaning activities

c)     Goat Farming

Since its start, the goat project has been advancing well. In July-September 2020, there was an increase in the birth rate of 68%.

Pass- on- a gift

TMT held a pass-on-gift ceremony where initial beneficial farmers gave four (4) upgraded goats to new households who were waiting for such an opportunity to receive crossbreed goats.

Those who succeeded in transferring the goats to new households felt satisfied that the goal of the first cycle was achieved and promised to manage the parent stock to generate more children for their households. At the same time, there is more encouragement and motivation for new households to do the same for the next beneficiaries.

The Ministry of Livestock was supportive and it was of great importance in keeping the goats safe. The organization has been distributing calliandra for further support to farmers, which is a fodder tree mostly aimed at boosting the feeds for goat farmers.

Way forward:

• Continue to monitor any outbreak of infectious diseases, vaccination, and prompt treatment of the goats with the County Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock.
• More Distribution to beneficiaries of the fodder trees and legumes and training them in feed management
• Establishment of adequate quality goat feeds as a sustainable management practice.
• Perform routine follow-ups on the farm.

d)    Tree Planting

During the July-September 2020 reporting period, TMT was able to raise different varieties of both forest and fruit trees (calliandra, cypresses, eucalyptus saligna, eucalyptus grandis, whistling pine, grevillea, grafted mangoes, pawpaws, money plants, oranges, tissue culture bananas) totaling up to 46,842 seedlings. The initially distributed seedlings are well established and the community tree cover expected to improve in the next six (6) months with the current short rainfall.

The already raised tree seedlings are still in distribution until mid-October, as the short rains are still promising. TMT distributed 20,214 of the raised forest and fruit tree seedlings to TMT caregivers, farmers, and OVCs with anticipation to extend the distribution to schools and churches as soon as the school re-opens from the COVID-19 Pandemic Break.

Way forward;

a)     Continue with the tree distribution and monitoring the progress of the already established trees to ensure that tree cover in the community is improved.

b)     More training sensitization the communities on the importance of both forest and fruit trees.

c)     To continue linking up with the local administration and the Kenya Forest Service department to strongly intervene and minimize human-animal habitat conflicts to ensure growth is attained and control on cutting down trees aimlessly.

e)     Poultry project

The Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust Kenya has embarked on a high profile poultry project in collaboration with Heifer International, the county government as well as other stakeholders. Subsequently, we have profiled 1,600 poultry farmers in 7 regions within Rachuonyo North, Rachuonyo South, and Rachuonyo East Sub counties of Homa Bay County. The project's main objective is to encourage intensive poultry agribusiness in the community, as well as proper nutrition in the communities. Our role is to provide the farmers with both technical and material support in order for them to implement this project.

Through the Farmers Training Centre built previously by this campaign, we have intensified training for our farmers using community extension veterinary officers, where farmers with difficulties with their poultry flocks can get help and training on how to take care of their flocks.

In addition, the project has begun giving out loans in terms of poultry equipment, construction of poultry houses, the supply of chicks for rearing, as well as feeds for the first 30 farmers in our profile list. This process will continue until we reach all our profiled farmers.

Our Model Farm continues to support our farmers by providing the best examples for this project. We currently have over 1,000 chickens that we use to show our farmers how to keep chickens in the right way.

II.     SUCCESS FACTOR

The organization has been able to make use of the amount raised in the various projects that are of benefit to the organization indicated in the projects mentioned above.

Challenges

-        We are still unable to run our poultry incubators because they need 100 percent electricity supply and without which we may incur losses in this project. We currently have 1-day-old chicks sourced from other farms, which is a little expensive.

-        Funding remains a key challenge for the implementation of this project as the funds raised have not been sufficient for the successful implementation of the activities.

-        We've fully started our fish cages project, unfortunately, we've lost a lot due to wandering fish predators, which have destroyed our cages and allowed most of our fish to escape.

III.   Plans for Next Quarter

-        More training for the new households on beehives management and timely harvesting and the new poultry farmers in best practices in poultry keeping.

-        We intend to roll out the loaning process to all our profiled farmers in order for them to embrace fully the poultry project.

-        Supporting the beneficiaries on the processing of pure natural honey, packaging, and marketing.

-        Install a solar panel at the poultry farm to be able to start another round of incubation.

-        Passing-on of the delivered goats' kids to other farmers to increase the placement target.

-        Stocking of the ready earth ponds and fish cages

INTRODUCTION:

The Mango Tree Orphan Trust Fund -Kenya has been implementing the achievable ambitious plan of improving the livelihood of 1500 rural farmers through agribusiness. It has been more than a year since the project was initiated and several agribusiness projects have been initiated and are ongoing. The project's fundraising target is $50,000 and we have been able to raise $13,678. This amount has been used to construct a modern grains store, construction of a modernized poultry farm, buying the poultry farm inputs, buying the poultry feeds milling machine, and has been used to loan the registered farmers in the cooperative society capital for buying soya bean seeds for planting. This same amount has been used to initiate some agribusiness activities that benefit the farmers. The key agribusiness activities here include goat farming, poultry farming, apiculture, aquaculture, cassava farming, ground nuts farming, mango farming, soya beans farming, and tree planting. For the quarter under review, the organization planned and accomplished the following activities:

FARMING ACTIVITIES

The organization in partnership with the registered local farmers, County, and National Government agricultural extension officers and other agribusiness institutions implements many agribusiness projects within Homabay and Migori Counties.  The organization is implementing the following specific agribusiness projects:

a)      Apiculture

Out of the 40 hives distributed to the farmers in the preceding periods, 28 hives have attracted the bees and the progress is well. Harvesting is targeted to happen in 5 months after a strong formation of the cobs that can hold more honey by August 2020. The initially distributed hives have produced up to 60kgs of pure honey in the last 3 months which is quite low. This is a result of movement restrictions imposed by the government (curfew) as a measure to reduce the spread of COVID-19 which has been a honey harvesting barrier. The restrictions have therefore resulted in a negative impact on the farmers’ incomes. We hope for more harvest after the uplift of the curfew.

Way forward

• Conduct routine follow up
• More training for the new households on beehives management and timely harvesting
• Supporting the beneficiaries on the processing of pure natural honey, packaging, and marketing.

b)      Aquaculture

We fully restocked 37 ponds in our last year’s budget which were well managed up to harvesting point. Out of the 37 ponds 5 dam liner ponds were at the model farm in Kosele TMT main office and 14 community liner ponds. The remaining 18 ponds were community earth ponds. The 18 earth ponds were fully submerged by the floods from the raising lake water level due to global warming and other challenges. Despite the numerous challenges faced by our farmers with earth ponds along the lake we still were able to record some meaningful positive results from the liner ponds.

Achievements

• The farmers manage to harvest 12 liner ponds successfully with proceeds record averagely of between Ksh 25,000 to Ksh 30,000.
• Two farmers can be self-reliant, hence fully graduated but still closely monitored by our field team.
• 5 Farmers successfully saved part of their proceeds with the TMT farmers’ cooperative promising continuity.
• One earth pond fish farmers managed to harvest his pond successfully despite the challenges.
• Most of the fish farmers used their incomes to pay school fees for their children in the months of January and February

Fish Cages

In the reporting period, our fish cage project in Kiwa Island has been successfully started with the installation of 9 cages fully stocked with 1500 fingerlings each, summing up to 13500 fish targeted at the harvesting of all the 9 cages. As at the reporting time we have mobilized a total of 51 households around the project area targeting to benefit 357 people directly and indirectly. The community remains positive with the project idea but due to the COVID-19, we are not able to continue with our planned capacity building activities for the targeted household clusters as earlier scheduled though the routine fish cage feeding and management are ongoing with the help of community service volunteers.

Challenges

• Due to the effects of global warming, we have had a share of its impact in our project area and specifically the earth ponds along the lake this has been aggravated by the inconsiderate sand mining along the lake. The farmers lost fish stock worth KSH 125000 in 17 ponds.
• 2 dam liners are submerged with the rising water level from the lake which cannot allow the building of dykes and construction of new ponds along the lake.

Way forward

• We consider investing in dam liner ponds for the affected households targeting 10 households.
• We are encouraging a few farmers who have land on higher grounds to construct new earth ponds
• More focus should be directed to fish cage farming since it is the only safer way to go

c)      Goat Farming

Most of the farmers feel so happy and motivated with the project as they can now smile 3 months after the placement due to kids' delivered reports. Based on the project goal of initiating, enhancing and providing a sustainable alternative source of livelihoods through a meaningful, participatory and intensive dairy goat upgrading project at the household level, a good outcome has been seen and better reports received from individual farmers where 61% of the local does have delivered kids of averagely 2 months old and most of these households are headed by the women. This is in conjunction with improved nutrition and health among the beneficiaries as a result of the consumption of good milk from the goats. We, therefore, believe to receive more positive reports from the goat farmers as the field officers do not conduct their routine daily monitoring as a result of COVID-19 pandemic and expect to extend to the remaining farmers who are still faced with similar economic and social challenges, these would increase the number of dairy goat crosses visible within the project area.

Way forward on Goat Farming

• Passing on of the delivered kids to other farmers to increase placement
• More placement to be carried out to hit the 44% remaining for placement
• Continue working with the County Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock to monitor any outbreak of infectious diseases, vaccination, and prompt treatment of the goats.
• Distribute fodder trees and legumes to the beneficiaries and train them on feed management.
• Liaise with the veterinary officer to train the farmers on goat breeding management.
• Establishment of a sustainable management practice of appropriate quality goat feeds.
• Conduct routine on-farm follow-ups

d)      Tree Planting

The Mango Tree Orphan Support Trust has been working with the communities, schools, and other local organizations to mitigate on reclamation of the land left bare due to sand harvesting which was a catastrophe in waiting.

The Infrastructure is impassable with a total power blackout for over 1 year as the root of the electric poles were weakened by the sand harvesting.

Though drawn back by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of tree distribution, TMT has managed to distribute 72,165 tree seedlings of various species ranging from Eucalyptus, Pines, Gravellier, Calliadra (which is a fodder tree) and 180 fruits trees comprising of grafted mangoes, Avocado and Pawpaw which is to help in reclamation of the harvested sites, boost the tree cover which is far below and introduce fruit tree per home for value addition while instilling the culture of a tree growing in the community.

The community has embraced this initiative as households are encouraged to embrace and join The Mango Tree Farmers Cooperative Society.

The tree's survival rate is well with a record of 89% picking up and growing strongly. Therefore we need to conserve the environment at all costs as the environment and the economy are two sides of the same coin.

Way forward

• To distribute another batch of trees in August during the short rains
• Do follow up and monitor the progress of the already growing trees
• To continue collaborating and sensitizing the communities on the importance of trees and taking care of our environment.
• To link up with the local administration and the Kenya Forest Service department to strongly intervene and minimize human-animal conflicts hence ensuring that growth is attained and control on cutting down trees aimlessly.

SUCCESS FACTOR

The organization has been able to utilize the raised $13,678 into various projects that are of benefit to the organization.

Challenges:

• Power fluctuation is a challenge in the poultry farm. The incubators require 100% availability of electricity for the best hatching rate. Power outage makes the project cater to the expensive cost of fuel for the generator that acts as a backup when there is a power outage.
• The organization is grateful to the donors who constantly support the projects through donations. However, funding remains a key challenge to implementing this project since the funds raised has not been enough for the successful implementation of the activities. Out of the $50,000 budget, $1 has been successfully fundraised and the organization is, therefore, appealing to the donors for continued support. The organization is also utilizing all available opportunities in the various projects to ensure that it gets income from the various projects to fund and expand on its projects. Moreover, the organization utilizes labor from the community volunteers as well as the senior beneficiaries who support the organization as a way of giving back to the community.

PLANS FOR NEXT QUARTER

• Poultry project has got a plan of purchasing a solar-powered incubator to solve the problem of power fluctuation that reduces the hatching rate.
• More training for the new households on beehives management and timely harvesting
• Supporting the beneficiaries on the processing of pure natural honey, packaging, and marketing.
• Install a solar panel at the poultry farm to be able to start another round of incubation.
• Exploring ways in which fish farmers can diversify and start fish cage farming
• Passing on of the delivered goats' kids to other farmers to increase the placement target.
• Stocking of the ready earth ponds and fish cages