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Foundations For Farming teachings and practices offer the solution to Africa’s never-ending problems resulting to food security, environmental degradation, climate change as well as increased poverty levels.
Francis and I, Jesse, after attending a Trainers of Trainers Training in Zimbabwe, have been going around teaching and showing our communities in Kenya how to do this. So far, we have been to different parts of the country and at one point we took the message to the fertile lands of South Sudan.
Kisii region which is bordering the Lake Victoria region in Kenya is one area that we have really concentrated on due to demand for these teachings and for reasons that it being an agricultural land, poverty levels and decreased yields are becoming a norm.
This year, we are advancing swiftly. We are;
- Keeping records of the groups reached
- Training new groups
- Re-training
- Doing demonstrations per groups trained
- Door to door visits\Follow-ups
- Identifying ambassadors, those helping us to remind their groups on how things are done.
- We are also introducing ‘’Rewards ‘’ to the best farmers per group as a way of encouraging the farmers.
- We are also planning to intensify follow ups.
This year, we have already done a four-day training that took place in the first week of February. We had a total of 32 participants in Kisii region, a place called Mogumo.
Previously, we have been doing a 3-day training but we noticed that it was not enough time to go through most of the very key Foundations for Farming teachings and this year we decided to at least do 4 days.
The training involves a class-like set up where we cover the theory part which is accompanied by bible reading, short demos and also watching short videos on Foundations for Farming teachings. All this takes at least 6 hours a day. Sometimes we go up to 7 hours. Then we close by having a bite and a drink together.
Most farmers are surprised how most organizations are exploiting them without their knowledge. Their eyes are being opened and during these trainings they are realizing the loose ends that they are supposed to close without us pointing directly to those loose ends.
It is close to planting season in Kisii and farmers are busy preparing their lands for this. They are also busy acquiring inputs.
On our side, we have halted new trainings and have intensified work on the ground. We have taken a short one week break after being in the field reminding and demonstrating to the groups we have trained how they need to prepare their fields and also how to plant.
If farmers in a group are coming far from each other, we cluster them then we go visit the cluster. Afterwards, we will be going door to door and try to help them where possible.
We have one man, Mr Wewe, who is helping us a lot in this. He is using the FfF methods and ever since he has seen a great improvement and is one of the great ambassadors of these teachings.
There are others who are also faithfully using the methods and have been calling us to visit and see how they are doing; one being someone called Mr Nyangáu and the other Thomas. Unfortunately, since we are covering a vast area, sometimes we do not manage to reach everyone.
1) Distance: We cover long distance to the ground all the way from Nairobi. We are still praying for a breakthrough with the Rongo property.
2) We are covering a vast area and at times we lose contacts and also cannot reach everyone. But with our new strategy, we are hoping to close the gap.
3) Facilitating our mobilizer, Mr. Wewe sometimes also needs extra resources.
4) Demand for new trainings keep increasing with new groups coming up especially after hearing and also seeing results from those trained.
5) Expectations from trainees also sometimes is also a challenge.
Foundations For Farming teachings and methods is one of the best ways of curbing climate change, poverty, poor farming practices, decreased yields and ever-increasing environmental degradation.
We really appreciate Bright Hope World in helping reach our communities with these teachings.
Francis and Jesse