Report from BHW Kenya Partnership Facilitator

Key People: Ibrahim and Diane Omondi

Recent Events

This year has had a slow start due to the continued COVID-19 restrictions with travel and with the rising tensions of elections. Jesse and Francis have said that things are slowly starting to pick up. They have been trying to keep in touch remotely to offer support with those they have trained but have unfortunately lost contact with some of the newer groups. 

They are receiving requests from different groups of farmers to be trained in Foundations for Farming. They have a training coming up in Kisii next week among several larger community groups and have an invitation to facilitate a training in Uganda. 

Personal Stories

Recently, they visited farmers in Kisii. They went house to house around the areas they have facilitated trainings and spoke to the farmers. During the visits they made the following observations:

It is mostly women are involved in the field activities. After trainings and demonstrations, some of them who went on to implement the methods are seeing good results. However, after the third harvest, many are reverting back to their usual farming methods. This has demonstrated the need for ongoing support and communication from Jesse and Francis. 

Despite these setbacks Jesse and Francis feel confident that they are building good relationships with the local communities, the message is being spread and people are seeing good results. 

Partnership's Influence within the Community

Jesse and Francis have said that the Foundations for Farming teachings are spreading far and wide in Kenya. They are continuing to receive invitations to facilitate more trainings with new farming groups and update ones with existing groups. The groups that have implemented the farming systems have had improved production in quality and quantity of crops. Some say their production has doubled and some say it has improved three times compared to what they previously used to harvest. They also talk of healthier soil. 

Current Issues and Challenges

They are hoping to add the use of PowerPoint presentations and videos to their trainings to help keep people engaged and boost learning. They currently lack the resources to be able to do this. 

Lack of proper demonstration gardens in the community is another issue. Seeing the method being used in a demonstration plot would challenge those who doubt the farming system they are introducing to them. It would also increase the morale and encourage farmers to implement Foundations for Farming fully. They have noticed that many farmers implement what they teach for one or two seasons, then revert back to the conventional system after the second or third harvest. It does not make sense since the yield with Foundations for Farming is better – but perhaps the lure of what is more familiar and more accepted/conventional pulls them back.

Prayer and Praise Points (from Jesse)

1) Enough provision for our families since the cost of living has drastically increased in the last several months.

2) It is our wish and prayer that we could go for a refresher seminar in Zimbabwe since from the time we went there, many years have gone by. (There are plans in place for them at attend training at the Harare base in September. Pray for this to go ahead.)

3) Our biggest dream is to have a Centre of Excellence at the right time, which we believe is now or as soon as possible.

Comments

Although things have been difficult for Jesse and Francis during the pandemic they have continued to train, support and maintain relationships where and how they can. The demand for this training is there and hopefully over the next year they will be able to travel more freely. We have just connected them up with our partners at Recada (KEN12) to facilitate trainings with the farmers Grace is working with. 

They still hope to purchase a plot of land as a base where they can have demonstration gardens. They have been in discussions with John Vlaming, BHW's Agricultural Director, to support them in this process and we are waiting for a more in-depth proposal for this. 

June/July Update from Francis and Jesse

In the past few weeks, we have had a series of trainings. We have held three training sessions and are planning to go back next week. 

There is a retired government extension officer in Kisii whom we met in one of our trainings at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He and his wife agreed to plant their maize field using FfF principles. Afterwards, we visited their maize fields in one of our follow ups and indeed their crop stand was good. After harvesting, he told us that in that section they used to harvest only close to half a sack, that is about 16 to 18 tins, but with this way of farming they harvested 41 tins! They were also surprised that only 10 to 12 cobs filled up a tin [2kgs] as compared to several cobs they used to shell to fill the same tin. 

From this experience, he requested us to train the groups he was working with. So far, we have reached three groups and he has explained that there are three or four others that we need to hold training seminars with. Two of the groups we have reached are in a place called Ogango and another one in a place called Ngokoro.

In Ogango we had 30 people and the other had between 37 and 42 people. The group in Ngokoro which was the last had between 27 and 32 people (the photos included are from Ngokoro; other locations were hesitant about us taking photos). In all the sittings, there was so much energy, laughter and very active participation. One of these groups sang songs of excitement and somehow it was a bit hard to even come to a close. Despite the very charged political campaigns going on outside the training venues, they sat put and they were not distracted by the noises outside. 

The last group included a lady who also previously sat in one of our trainings during the COVID-19 pandemic. We were surprised to realize how far she used to trek in order to join us in those trainings. She reports that after our seminar, she went home to implement as much as she learnt and understood. Though we never visited her, her neighbours testified that she was the only person in that neighbourhood who had a good crop and also got a good harvest.  

It was after what she saw from implementing FfF principles that she called us to go and train her neighbours. As much as we tried to postpone, the more she called us. Finally, we were able to go and train. There were between 7 and 10 people and the place is called Karachuonyo. 

Unfortunately, we were not able to conduct planting demonstrations in the field due to time constraints in all the four groups. We are however trying to figure out how it will be possible to go back and do this before August with less than 30 days to our general elections (which is usually a bit chaotic).

In all these, we give God the glory. Thank you for your continued support.

Jesse Kilel
Francis Ogembo