Bosinya women group in Nyamira are a happy lot after receiving a solar powered vegetable drier and a vegetable grinding mill to enable them venture into value addition of their vegetables.
The drier and grinder were issued to the Community Based women Organization (CBO) yesterday by International Solidarity Foundation (ISF), a Non-Governmental Organization which has been supporting the CBO in its vegetable economic venture and capacity building on other empowerment areas.
The Regional Director of International Solidarity Foundation (SIF), Ms. Ariri Kahara, said they have been supporting this women group with funds to initiate and sustain their vegetable farming venture but run into huge losses during overproduction seasons of the perishable commodity the reason why ISF decided to give them a drier.
“Vegetables are key nutritious meal components in all homes and have a very high demand though the fluctuation of its demand and supply in the market poses a great risk to farmers who run into huge losses when the supply of this perishable surpasses its demand,” Ms. Hariri observed.
“It’s against this backdrop that ISF decided to cushion this women group against incurring losses at the market after their tireless efforts in their farms so they can dry excess harvest supply and sell them later and grind some which can be used as flour or spices for various delicacies,” the regional director stated.
She further confirmed that they would support the women with irrigation pumps to sustain their supply of vegetables in the market because climate change has greatly altered previous predictable weather patterns which have directly affected their constant supply of the vegetables to the market.
Through several training sessions, benchmarking visits and capacity building workshops, these women practicing vegetable farming are able to manufacture their own organic manure which they use in their farms to improve soil fertility and at the same time reduce the cost of fertilizer and be assured of the best quality, nutritious products.
Nyamira County Director for Agriculture Lydia Momanyi said the county government is in full support of the agricultural venture and said they encourage people of various age groups starting from the youths to form groups and write farming proposal for funding and they will get total support be it financial or professional to enable them undertake a profitable agricultural venture of their choice because market for food products is always available.
Besides supporting the women group practice agriculture as a business, the foundation is training women on finance and saving growth skills, advise them on how to reduce and counter gender based violence incidents in their homes, at the same time end the archaic practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) on their girls which is now criminal.
ISF is in partnership with other local organizations in Nyamira to provide platforms where these vulnerable groups can freely share on their challenges which are openly debated about and possible solution recommendations made to address the status and well-being of these groups of people in the county.
By Deborah Bochere and Tabitha Mwendwa
