Enable 1500 Kenyan Rural Farmers for Agribusiness

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