{"id":794,"date":"2018-05-15T15:28:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T15:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/uncategorized\/794\/maiden-machakos-farmers-network\/"},"modified":"2019-11-06T08:22:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:22:35","slug":"maiden-machakos-farmers-network","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/blogs\/794\/maiden-machakos-farmers-network\/","title":{"rendered":"Maiden Machakos Farmers Network"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
To the west of Nairobi, sits a beautiful, hilly, semi-arid county. It is named after Masaku wa Munyeti, an Akamba chief. Welcome to Machakos home to Iveti hills.<\/div>\n

It is a radiant Thursday morning, my colleagues and I are here for three days to visit the farms of some of the farmers we trained last year on ecological agriculture, establish a farmers network and engage the farmers in a policy dialogue session.<\/p>\n

\n
To many, Machakos county is hot, dry and dusty, but this time it is lush and green. In John Isika\u2019s farm in Kivandini, tad bits of water emanate from the ground \u2013 a clear sign that the long rains were sufficient and the crops appreciated them.<\/div>\n
\n

John, one of the farmers trained on ecological agriculture, has a four acre piece of land where he grows maize, mangoes, pigeon peas and beans.On such a large farm, pests are inevitable. So how does he fight pests attacking his crops? \u00a0\u201cThe obstinate Fall armyworm, no longer gives me sleepless nights. I use \u2018muvaangi\u2019- a shrub native to Machakos, garlic and chilli to make a biopesticide that I spray onto my crops whenever there are any signs of infestation. My household has never lacked food regardless of the season. If my maize dies, I will harvest beans or pigeon peas popularly known as Nzuu,\u201d says a content John. <\/p>\n

The next stop is Kivaa a \u00a0three hours drive from Kivandini, Cecilia Somba\u2019s farm. Standing conspicuously in the midst of her compound are two silos. As if \u00a0she read my mind, Cecilia hurried to explain \u201cThe silos are half-empty, however they will be full in three months with harvest. Last season, water was a challenge because of the prolonged drought, but thanks to my ecological agriculture \u00a0training, I do not have to worry about my plants lacking water. This rainy season, I have dug a water collection point, where all the rainwater from upstream collects. My cassava, beans and cowpeas will flourish this season and my silos will overflow with harvest.\u201d quips an elated Cecilia.<\/p>\n

What a delight to see that the farmers are putting into practise the training they received. Through teary eyes, I watch the sun fall over Kivaa hill, painting the sky shades of red and pink and I thank God for it has been a fruitful day.<\/p>\n

The next morning, the farmers walk into the conference room at Tea Tot hotel earlier than expected for the establishment of Machakos\u2019 first Greenpeace Africa inspired Farmers Network. Are they eager to hear what the farmers network is all about? Or do they just keep time? I couldn\u2019t help but ponder.<\/p>\n

The room is filled with 30 farmers, on their faces I can see smiles, curiosity and an eagerness to learn. From the introductions, it is evident that they love what they have been practising for the past five months and would love to do some more.<\/p>\n

We kick off the meeting explaining the importance of joining a farmers networks, what the benefits of being part of it are, reviewing the network\u2019s work plan \u00a0and choosing the leaders to guide the network.<\/p>\n

Perpetua, a farmer from Mavoko shares that, the network will be essential in helping them find organic markets for their produce. From the group discussions, the farmers feel ecological agriculture should be encouraged because it ensures food security, encourages agroforestry and saves money that would have been used in purchasing \u00a0fertilizers and pesticides\u201d<\/p>\n

And with that we wrap up the second day.<\/p>\n

What a pity to find that from a group of 30 farmers, only one farmer was aware of the Machakos County Annual Development Plan and he alone had participated in a policy dialogue process.<\/p>\n

This is the \u00a0third and final day \u00a0and it is all about policy dialogue. My colleague Fred is more than elated to take the farmers through the existing agricultural policies in Kenya. For this session he breaks-out the farmers into groups of four to discuss emerging issues and key priorities that they would like the agricultural policies to address.<\/p>\n

As we depart for Nairobi, I am hopeful that the Machakos Farmer Network under the leadership \u00a0of Samuel Wathome and Stella Muathe will hold the County government accountable on funds set aside for agriculture, participate in policy dialogues and sell their produce at organic farmers market or establish an organic farmers market where they can sell their produce. Machakos it was a pleasure. \u201cNi muuseo\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To the west of Nairobi, sits a beautiful, hilly, semi-arid county. It is named after Masaku wa Munyeti, an Akamba chief. Welcome to Machakos home to Iveti hills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[27,37,13],"p4-page-type":[48],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-protecttheenvironment","tag-farming","tag-food","tag-about-us","p4-page-type-blogs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2852,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions\/2852"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/africa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}