Reading Time: 3 minutes Have you ever had to send money back home to support the family farm? Perhaps for inputs during the planting season or pay for farm labour?
Did you get the money back?
The Muguka Farms of Kajiado and Taveta: Do high-return cash crops affect food crop production?
Reading Time: 4 minutes The price of a kilogram of Muguka can range from Kshs. 800-1200 or more. Assuming an average of Kshs.1000 per kilo, with 2-3 weekly harvests (depending on scale), and minimal inputs, Muguka has better returns for farmers compared to most crops. I was keen on finding out if Muguka farming impacts the cultivation of food crops and to what extent. Does it compete for space, water or farmer’s attention considering the associated high returns?
The New Cash Crops: A good thing or looming disaster?
Reading Time: 4 minutes Farmers today are investing heavily in market-oriented crops. Seemingly, there are two tiers. Tier One is the local market producers who have narrowed the farm-to-market pipeline down to a formula. Tier Two is the export-market producers with larger land holdings and heavy capital investment in expertise, technology, boreholes and with hundreds of greenhouses dotting the landscape in places like Isinya (Kajiado County). It might be a good thing -there is growth of ecosystem players and factors that form an enabling environment.
But is the narrow focus on a few crops that do not form the majority of food crops a cause for concern?
Agroecology: Principle, not Rule
Reading Time: 5 minutes There are major problems with how we produce and consume food today……The source of these problems: food production and consumption are far removed from the environmental and social systems and structures that support it; food minus its system.
Kitchen Gardening in Nairobi: Any Potential?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Gracie is part of a group I call Urban Kitchen Gardeners. They grow crops in small spaces. For example, Gracie cultivates in vertical sacks. Her house and farm are on a 50by100 space along Kangundo Road. Vertical farming increases the amount of produce per square foot.
Are communities the key to mass adoption of organic farming?
Reading Time: 2 minutes Communities – online or offline – provide an organic reach to the individual. Group psychology through informational social influence, works in favour of knowledge sharing. Communities build inherent social trust. Word of mouth and social proof motivate others to take up action.
The Challenge of Feeding Ourselves Part 2: The Mwea Irrigation Ecosystem as a Small Scale Agriculture Model
Reading Time: 7 minutes We are always talking about the problems. This week, let’s change gears and focus on solutions – how to rethink commercial small-scale agriculture.
The Challenge of Feeding Ourselves: Part 1: Small-Holder Agriculture in Rural and Peri-Urban Areas
Reading Time: 6 minutes Our farmers work hard to produce food, but why is it not enough? Part of it is the scale of production as explained below:
Virtual water trade: Should Kenya rethink food exports?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Kenya is exporting water, hidden in the avocado and cut flower exports
The Story of Agriculture and Food Systems in Africa: Where do we go from here?
Reading Time: 5 minutes We are stuck – between our past ways of food production and a promise of “modernity.” We stretch our hands to grab, but neither is within reach.