My apologies for waiting so long before posting another entry, the days have been long, the days have been busy, the days have been without electricity. As I have told some of you, I am now in rural Kenya. More precisely, I am now in Kenya’s eastern province in Kitui. The organization I am working with has several plots of land in rural Kenya. While the organization also works out of Nairobi, one of their main objectives is increasing the output of agriculture and land use efficiency. They are working to train youth how to farm and work the land. Food security is a huge issue facing the Kenyan population as Kenya is currently in a recession, cost of transport is high, there was reduced rainfall last year, and hence, reduced yield in crops, specifically maize.  

Kitui in particular, is a region marked with much stagnant, unfarmed land, and the economy in this area is poor. Many of the community members own land, yet do not engage in farming. Instead, they will send their sons and daughters into the city after completing secondary school where they await money and food to be brought in. In addition, farmers who do farm, often do not come close to using the land to its maximum utility. Maize may be planted twice a year, and the rest of the time the land lies idle. In the past year, there was a significant reduction in rainfall which had devestating effects for farmers in Kitu, and throughout the country. Money was tight, food shortages were everywhere, and the cost of food was extremely high.

Maize is the predominant cash crop in Kenya, or so I am told. While there are a number of indigenous crops that grow very well here and provide equal or higher nutritional benefits, a high percentage of the farming population plants, farms and sells maize. As you can imagine, this does not fare to the farmers’ advantage: when maize is in season, it is available everywhere and the price paid for this commodity is extremely low. Farmers in this part of the province have no means of transporting their produce to market; therefore, they sell at very low prices to middle men buyers. These men then transport the maize to the cities where it is bought for as much as ten times what the maize is sold for.

The farm where I am currently abiding grows an abundance of crop varieties. While they do have some maize, they have several grain options which range from beans, pumpkin, peanuts, potatoes, sorghum, cassava, and green grams to name a few. They also grow a huge variety of vegetables and fruits from peppers, tomatoes, onions, sakuma, spinach, mango, papaya, and passion fruit among others. While it is an active farm, it is also a training ground where youth from the community visit, are trained, and supported in farming their own plot of land. So you may be asking yourself, where do I fit in out here? Well here are some logistics about my daily living.

This part of Kenya has no electricity, so my solar powered battery has most certainly come in handy and is a hot commodity around these parts. However, when night falls, it is very dark, other than a low energy torch, there is little to light one’s path. I am living in a house made up of mud walls, and mud bricks.

My daily routine goes something like this: I wake up each morning around 6:30. I try to take the first half hour in the morning to study Swahili, as I most likely won’t find the time after that. Then we get to work on the land, watering the crops, and manually stepping on the treadle pump. Watering takes about 2 hours. After watering is complete, someone usually prepares breakfast which is usually comprised of papayas and ugi (porridge made of maize flour).

Next we will do whatever task needs doing such as digging plant beds, planting trees, transporting seedlings, harvesting, or any other kind of farm task. During the day several youth stop by to check out the works, and while I can’t understand what is being said, there is a lot of respect for these works by the youth in the community. While I can’t say that I have strong skills in manual labour, it has been good for me to see the processes, challenges and labour output involved in small scale farming in rural Kenya.

Farming out here looks completely different from farming at home as everything is done by hand. It is very hot here, and digging up nursery beds in the heat of the day is extremely taxing. Not only that, but regular tasks such as harvesting the vegetables, washing them, cooking them, cleaning up afterwards, having a shower, washing your clothes, are incredibly time consuming and tiring. Hunching over in a four foot hut while stirring a pot of ugali takes some serious manpower!  Washing machines, waist high countertops, and electric ovens are unaffordable luxuries to the majority of the farmers out here in Kitui.

In the afternoon, there is usually time for non-farming activities. For example, we spent the last three days writing up a proposal for a youth (aged 18-35 years) grant here in Kitui. The project consists of recruiting, training, and supporting youth in forming small scale agricultural businesses. As I already mentioned, there is much idle land in this area, and many youth will leave the rural area for the city as soon as they are done school.This leaves the area with a growing aged population with limited strength to care for the land or the elderly.  In addition, crop variety is extremely limited in this part of Kenya; hence, they are encouraging the youth to grow a variety of crops that can better sustain weather changes and reduced rain. Some of the project ideas consist of youth growing and selling organic farm produce, vegetable and fruit drying, flour milling and baking, oil pressing and extraction, canning and pickling, making natural nut butters, and the packaging of indigenous crops for medecines and remedies.

There is huge potential out here for innovation. As I previously mentioned, much money is lost through transport. This project aims to bring youth together in formally registered groups that cooperate and share resources so that every aspect of their business can be completed to its maximum yield. In other words, we are hoping that efforts can be made for youth to not only grow and package their produce, but also to establish a market for their produce, find transport solutions, and establish sales links with some of the larger (either grocery stores or farmers markets) in the city.

There are already several youth working towards this objective within Kitui; however, resources are extremely tight, and even to implement irrigation systems takes a great deal of effort and time. It will take substantial energy and resources before the following steps I have outlined above, will manifest. Whether or not the grant is awarded however, they will continue to educate, train and support youth in agriculture and agriculturally based business  in Kitui.

As a follow up to my earlier posts, we did complete the annual returns for the last 2 years; however, there have been some hiccups in sending them in. The prior Director of this NGO is no longer here, and efforts have been made to have him sign over the paperwork. Another issue is that three members of the NGO need to get a PIN number in order to sign the organization up for a PIN number. The PIN number is the code for the organization's taxes. I am hoping this will be completed fairly soon and continue to encourage the members to finish up with this task.

Another area they have asked me to look into is revenue tracking. In the past 2 years since the organization has been functioning, the amount of revenue coming in, or costs going out, has not been documented or tracked. I have come up with a simple idea for tracking all revenue within the organization which has been received very well. I will post more on this next time.

Living in the rural area has many challenges, and while I can't say I am entirely comfortable here, it is good to be able to see for myself how small scale farming works in Kenya, what some of the challenges as well as future potentials are, and to be a part of the process in coming up with solutions for supporting local youth in small scale businesses.