Farmers group training in Bio intensive - Kenya
Background informtion
Sima Community Based Organization, is a Kenyan rural community based project being co-ordinated by former Manor House Agricultural College graduate. MHAC is a sustainable Agriculture training institution for both the small-scale farmer collaborators and high school leavers; located in Trans-Nzoia district of the expansive Rift Valley province of Kenya.
The training focuses on Bio-intensive agriculture technological options for effective utilization and management of agricultural resources on smallholder farms. The training of high school leavers is aimed at technological options. With farmers in rural areas. This is either through formal employment in projects involved in sustainable agriculture programmes or through initiation of community based projects by graduates upon graduation. It’s through this concept of project initiation that Sima was initiated.
Statement of purpose (focus)
SIMA’s statement of purpose is to promote ecologically sound and economically viable strategies for effective utilization and management of agricultural resources on smallholder farms. Sima particularly targets economically disadvantaged small-scale farmer collaborators. Sima seeks to pursue its focus through the following objectives.
Objectives
To offer technical training to farmers through participatory community farmer training approaches aimed at;
Improving soil/crop productivity through the use of sustainable soil fertility management strategies.
Increasing farmer utilization of local available resources
Promoting improved, family health through crop diversification, income generation and farm planning.
To carry out participatory technology generation verification and transfer experimentation.
coordinate and participatory technology generation verification and collaboration and networking with other development projects.
To establish mechanism to facilitate the sharing of information amongst partners.
To create forums for sharing information and experiences among various stakeholders engaged in improving farm productivity and rural livelihoods.
Location
Sima Community Based Organization, targets small holder- farming communities of Western Kenya and parts of Rift Valley.
Areas targeted by Sima are generally covered by soils inherently low in soil fertility.
Problems and needs.
Areas targeted by SIMA Community Based Organization, are covered by soils inherently low in soil fertility. Further decline in soil fertility has a risen as a result of poor soil fertility management practices.
Consequently, crop productivity has been low. Maize and beans, mostly grown as intercrops, are the dominant crops and cover about 95% of cultivated land. Low crop yields have also resulted from high incidences of pests and diseases and poor management practices. The low crop yields coupled with lack of crop diversity; result in food crop deficits in which households experience an average of 6 months of hunger every year. There have been limited options open to farmers in the area of soil and crop productivity improvement. Farmer adoption of the few available options such as organic manure for soil fertility improvement has often been limited by availability of materials and limited knowledge of how to efficiently manage and utilize the resource at land.
Needs.
SIMA CBO is therefore requested for any well wishers, donors to support farmer trainings in Bio-intensive agriculture technological options. The trainings are aimed at reversing the scenario of low per unit yields within smallholder farms by widening the window of options open to farmers in the area of soil fertility and crop productivity improvement. Farmers trained will have to integrate the various components of Bio-intensive agriculture technological options learnt into farm practice and their farms to be role models from which other farmers can learn from.
The proposed training is to take off as soon as funds are available.
Based on participatory and farmer-to-farmer training approaches the training aimed at establishing sustainable kitchen gardens with 1,000 farmer collaborators. These will involve 10 representatives from each of the five groups of forty members each. The ten representatives will thereafter train their respective group members under close supervision of the project resource person and also act as group resource persons.
Therefore the total number of farmers to participate in the training will be fifty (ten representatives from each of the five groups)
For more information :
Johnstone Sikulu Wanjala
Programme Coordinator
Sima Community Based Organization.
P.O.BOX 1691, Kitale
30200? Kenya
+254 733 453 339
Email : sikuluj@yahoo.com
