Kenya is Growing Onions Using New Technologies
From
his two-acre farm, Simon Nderitu stooped as he scrutinized his red bulb
onion crop this season. “Before the project, I was farming because it
was what everybody else did here to get food. But things have changed
significantly for small-holder farmers who embraced a farming project
led by Farm Concern International,” he said. Nderitu is among
participants in an initial pilot project spearheaded by Farm Center
International (FCI) which started with 2,000 people in 2007, but has
since been scaled up to include 10,000 farmers of Kieni located in Nyeri
County, Central Kenya. A combination of holistic extension and advisory
approaches, the project instills good agro-practices for higher quality
production, treats agriculture as a means to social integration, brings
farmers and traders together in mutual business understanding, and
ensures that government agricultural officers deliver service at the
point of need.
It
also fosters new technology adoption and advises farmers on sound
financial practices like savings. Ultimately, it aims at improving the
entire value chain, through innovative approaches like linking markets
to farmers, farmers to sellers of farm inputs, creating personalized
interactions between various stakeholders. Nderitu now knows how to
prepare his land, secure affordable right seed varieties and plant based
on seasonal projections and market demand.
Yields Treble
The
project has enabled Nderitu to more than treble his farm yield. “Before
2008, I used to cultivate open pollinated varieties, which gave me on
average 4,500 kilograms in a good season. But after adopting hybrid
variety in 2008 and employing other good farming practices, the same
piece of land yielded for me 7,000 kg in my first harvest under the
project.” Convinced by this huge gain, he dedicated two thirds of an
acre to hybrid onion in 2009, and the yield shot up by 2,000 kilograms.
Today, the father of three is a proud owner of an eight-roomed decent
timber house, dairy cattle and his children have been moved from public
schools to a private academy for quality education. Coming from a
laid-back peasantry economy in a semi-arid area, Nderitu now knows how
to space seeds when planting and what varieties will fetch good returns.
“I
have learnt how to identify the right fertilizer and the amount to
apply, when to start weeding and how to cure the onions to prevent them
from rotting after harvesting,” he added. From the nursery to
maturation, onions take on average 120 days and a kilo middles at KSh.30
to KSh.50 (US$ 0.318-0.531) compared to four years ago when same could
fetch only KSh.5 (US$ 0.053) a kilo. Nderitu, the chairman of Embaringo
Commercial Village, a consortium of farmer groups within a given
administrative village, said they have seen a revolution since 2008 with
farmers moving from mainly subsistence production to commercial
farming.
Socio-economic Transformations
“Many
children are now able to go to school, good houses are coming up and
the young are turning to farming instead of migrating to urban centers
for the ever elusive promise of employment.” The project directly links
farmers to traders, eliminating crafty middlemen who dominated sale and
fleeced farmers. Nderitu said some middlemen are resorting to onion
farming after seeing the possibility of lucrative returns and others
play the role of bulking during low production within the villages. The
appearance of shopping centers in the once poverty stricken sleepy
village of Embaringo is a clear indication that the impact of such onion
growing has significantly improved peoples’ purchasing powers in the
area.
The
Embaringo Commercial Village, Nderitu explained, coordinates
production, sales, collective savings, looks into the welfare of
farmers, as well as negotiates for bulk farm inputs at a much lower cost
compared to individual purchases. Gerald Ngatia Watoro, Market and
Trade Manager for Mount Kenya Region project that combines both Kieni
West and East, said the pilot has made a huge impact. “The communities
then had no organized mechanism in production and market development.
We, therefore, decided to focus on hybrid red bulb onion having realized
that it would not only lift many out of total penury but positively
impact on development in this rural setting. On average production was
low at about 1,500 kg per acre and the quality of the onions was poor,”
Watoro explained. FCI launched the project with the involvement of the
Ministry of Agriculture Officials, the local Provincial Administration
and the farmers. “We wanted an all-inclusive process built on a
consensus rather than a top-down approach. We wanted the people to own
the concept for it to work.”
New Technologies
A
key component of the discussions was technologies that could be
adapted. These included using the right seeds, proper agronomical
practices and good post-harvest technologies. The project started with
administrative villages made up of 150-200 households and created groups
called Commercial Group, which formed an umbrella consortium called
Commercial Villages. These are members who have agreed to work together
to form an economic bloc with common leadership. Farmers were trained in
the science of small-scale commercial farming like good land tilling
methods, nursery management and transplanting, weeding, use of herbicide
and proper spraying methods and program, especially more effective and
less costly preventive spraying.
It
also includes lessons on natural resource management and soil
fertility: how to keep soils fertile through practices like crop
rotation, water management through harvesting of path and roadside water
run-offs into their gardens, digging of trenches to conserve water in
farms and to check soil erosion. They have been trained on record
keeping, both at the individual farm level as well as for the village
groups. Today, project participants release on average 10,000 kilograms
of onions per acre and this fetches up to US$ 3,194. Farm inputs and
overhead costs averages US$ 532 leaving a farmer with a profit of US$
2,662 from an acre of hybrid onion. They plant seed verities like Red
pinoy FI, Jamba FI, and Red star, marketed by different seed dealers.
Commercial Village Concept
Even
more interesting about the project is the Commercial Village concept.
It is an association of groups within a village known as Commercial
Producer groups with various sub-committees and functions as a business
hub. According to Watoro, the FCI market development strategy directly
links farmers to traders and thus eliminates middlemen influence in the
value chain. Farmers now have a growing database of onion traders in
Nairobi, Mombasa, Karatina and Kisumu accessed easily from cell phones.
Onion traders are also trained in cash flow management, business
development plans, transportation, customer selection and formation of
traders associations. “What we want is sustainability, which is only
possible if all the components are working efficiently and making
profits,” Watoro explained.
Kieni
has largely been considered developmental backwater. Yet Watoro said
banking institutions were moved in and marked an increase in number of
those holding accounts. According Stanley Mwangi, FCI Strategy and
Partnership Director, they have focused on giving farmers the right
knowledge and changing the attitude of farmers to see farming as
commercial venture. They seek to make farmers develop habits like making
savings and linking them with research institutions. Their new frontier
in extension services will be the ICT.
Source: onislam.net
