When a group of farmers in Kawanjara village in Embu West agreed to be part of a new farming extension system five years ago, none of them knew the riches it would bring them.
The new approach injected timing, market research, and careful crop selection into their farming, a move that is bringing them great fortunes and changing the lives of members of the Macumo Tomato Growers group.
The group is one of 20 sites in 20 counties around the country that experimented with the Smallholder Empowerment and Agricultural Promotion (SHEP Biz) approach, a concept that emphasises farmers grow only things whose potential to bring them money they have researched.
The project is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The project is about changing mindsets to entrench a deep business culture in the farmers so that they don’t just grow crops and then look for markets, but do research on markets to determine which crops to grow and when to plant them for maximum returns, says the SHEP Biz Coordinator with the Ministry of Agriculture, Alice Nyaga.
In most parts of the country, farmers grow crops, hoping they will find buyers when the crop is ready. The income from such farming is uncertain because the farmer is never sure they’ll find a buyer at the right time, or the buyers offer poor prices because the market is flooded.
SHEP Biz hopes to remove that uncertainty from farming, Nyaga adds.
The Macumo Tomato Growers have not only studied the tomato market dynamics in Runyenjes, Ishiara, and other surrounding towns but have also studied the growing patterns in rival tomato-producing areas such as Mwea.
“That way we are able to draw our growing calendar so that our tomatoes are ripe when the supply of tomatoes in surrounding markets is short,” says group Secretary Antony Ireri.
The success of the group is even attracting international attention. Participants at an international seminar on the SHEP extension approach visited the group Friday to learn how they have navigated their business in the last five years.
The participants, drawn from South Africa, Ethiopia, Malawi, Kenya, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Malawi, and Tanzania, also learnt that success with the SHEP concept has also helped the group introduce other product lines into their farming activities for money.
Besides tomatoes, which were their initial crop of choice, Macumo Tomato Growers have since diversified to growing sweet corn and plantains for a contract buyer who exports the two products.
Group Chair Peter Njiru says the income from the crops has also helped the groups buy dairy cows for each of their members, increasing their income from the sale of milk.
He says the added income from the project has enabled him to build a better home for his family and pay school fees for his children with ease.
Another offshoot of the project is the introduction of dairy cows into his farming, which has enabled him to construct a biogas system so that his wife now uses clean energy for their cooking needs.
His success story is echoed by Secretary Ireri, who adds that the new income has made it possible for him to pursue the higher education he craved but couldn’t pursue earlier for lack of money.
The project’s Chief Advisor with JICA, Nobuhide Hayashi, says that the SHEP concept has proven such a success that they would like to see it mainstreamed not only in Kenya but in all countries with smallholder farmers.
He added that JICA is expanding the SHEP approach in extension services and is also considering linking farmer groups to financial institutions so that they can access credit.
At the initial stages, Ministry of Agriculture and Embu County Department of Agriculture staff visited the group regularly to train them on proper husbandry, quality improvement, and record-keeping.
The result is farming, which gives the farmers good money in a short period of time.
Chairman Njeru says the training also helped them acquire good farming practices such as crop rotation, which is not only good for soil health but also helps in disease control so that they do not have a lot of chemicals in their farming.
He adds that they have met a few setbacks in their journey, such as when they introduced butternut gourds as a second crop, but they did not hit very well in the market, therefore settling on the sweet corn and plantains.
Ireri says that their group meets once a month to draw their planting calendar and also to plan how to buy inputs as a group, which enables them to bargain for better prices.
He said during the meeting they also do table banking, with the money raised used to bail out members who may be unable to raise their contributions for buying inputs when needed.
It is also from the table banking concept that they have bought the dairy cows for their members.
Njiru said they now plan to increase their membership from the current 17 in order to increase the quantity of produce.
They feel that if they establish their village as a major tomato-growing area, they will be able to attract more buyers, thereby improving their competitiveness.
By Steve Gatheru
