The establishment of the two demonstration farms and the continuous implementation of the permaculture design has provided a learning platform to project beneficiaries in the month.key focus has been on the agro ecological practices mainly on the bio intensive kitchen garden, composting, soil and water conservation measures (swales, sunken and raised beds, germination beds and fertility trenches),main farm management, tree nursery establishment where and water harvesting structures, apiary setting and placing of the hives has been done.In the two demo farm, 10 hives were placed at the apiaries and 5 of them were colonised within a week 3 in kamarandi and 2 in kyenire. In one demo farm efforts towards aquatic farming has been expresses through excavation of a fish pond that is lined but the fingerlings are yet to be introduced. Of key importance in the process has been the engagement of the farmers groups in the entire management process of the demonstration farm activities. In the kitchen gardens various crops were planted which are inclusive of the kales, spinach, amaranth sweat potatoes, sorghum, maize while in the main farms there are green grams and sorghum. Yields from the demo farm (sorghum, green grams and sweet potatoes), sorghum are used as seeds for the next season while green grams and sweet potatoes are used to cook for project beneficiaries while working and learning in the farm. The vegetables from the kitchen gardens are sold for income generation and at times also cooked for farmers during their working days in the demonstration farms.In kyenire demonstration farm the poultry section is doing well with a total of 115 poultry alive comprising of 39 kruloire, 46 rainbow and 30 karikienyeji.In the month 18 chicks have been hatched and 412 eggs were laid and among them 384 sold to project beneficiaries willing to upgrade their poultry breeds, kamarandi demo farm chicken coop construction is on progress.***
Training of the CBOs, and demo farm committees has been done.The CBOs will be updating farmers on market information, interpreting the market prices to farmers, doing market research and analysing of dates. the fruitful training hatched a plan on how the aggregation will be done at the demo farm. The aggregation process is on course farmers have already submitted list of green grams they are willing to sell which is currently summing up to 4tonnes of n26 variety. ***
Training of MMFs on use of agro ecological practices for diversification of on-farm production focusing on uptake of production of green grams, sorghum and chicken, organic soil improvement and water conservation has continued in the month - with key focus on farmers group,memebrs of M2M groups and the CMDRR groups. In the month malesand females were trained. Adoption rate has also improved as compared to last month and cumulatively a total of 167 farmers so far are practicing various agro ecological practices whereby 148 are based in kamarandi location, 74 from Ndurumori and 84 from Iriatune location. Among them 141 are from Male headedhouseholds while 163are from the female headed house holds.It is also worth noting that those able to practice agro ecology at this time are those connected to irrigation water or adjacent to a water source. Some of those far from water sources especially in iriaitune location have resulted to using the donkeys to fetch water for their kitchen gardens. This is attributed to the fact that rains have ceased and at this point people are harvesting.In continuous follow ups the farmers are being encouraged to continue making composts and digging terraces in their farms in preparation of the the next rain season, also sensitization on leaving their crops residue after harvesting to decompose in the farm as a good practise towards soil health. It has been noted that many women are participating in the agro ecological trainings as compared to men and very encouraging to hear from the women that the husbands are supporting them in the implementation process for adoption.
As a mean of Supporting female farmers to adopt improved chicken production techniques, the project officers have been engaged in continuous monitoring of the poultry groups and the monitoring visits indicate good progress in terms of egg consumption at house level, eggs sale as well as hatched chicks that has led to increase in number of chicken at house hold level. So far a total …… chicks have been hatched and at different age, while only a small percentage of less than 10% beneficiaries seems to be selling their eggs and to a great extent they are interested with consumption and breeding purpose.During the month of July, all the poultry groups held planning meetings with the with OSA Ishiara staff to review the progress of the poultry intervention. The way forward after the meetings, farmers were advised to use kyenire demo farm as their learning reference, pay visits to the demo farm or the beneficiary with the eggs for improved kienyeji to buy them for hatching, this is encouraged for the farmers whose chicken have died but with a laying local breed hen. Ask questions regarding the feeding, disease management or any issue related to poultry. In this planning meetings,100 beneficiaries were reached, 17 from male headed households and 83 from female headed households.