Adopting All the Skills
You’d have to search far and wide before finding a more determined farmer than Lucy. Since joining her village’s Farmer Field School, she has started implementing all the new practices she’s been exposed to thus far. These include establishing a multi-story kitchen garden, building a large outdoor dish rack to improve household sanitation, erecting a chicken coop and raising chickens, improving her goat-rearing practices, and adopting conservation agriculture practices on her farm. To name a few.
Lucy became the sole breadwinner for her family of seven when her husband was diagnosed with cancer in January of 2020. She got interested in joining the Farmer Field School after watching how its members’ lives were being transformed. “I would visit their homesteads to learn whatever they were doing,” she says. As soon as she established her own kitchen garden, she planted kales and onions. Since May of 2021, she has not needed to buy any, and this success has encouraged her to enlarge the garden and plant a wider variety of vegetables.
Because her chicken coop offered enough security against theft and wild animal attacks, she decided to raise more chickens. Already she’s generating enough income from them to cover her family’s basic needs, and the eggs are helping her husband through cancer treatment.
Lucy admits that, before joining the Farmer Field School, she had been “keeping goats blindly, not knowing what was required regarding feeding and management.” After training and interacting with other members of her Farmer Field School, she realized the importance of upgrading her stock for better results. She is still buying milk, but she feels so empowered that she is sure she can make her goats more productive.
She has also embraced Conservation Agriculture, practicing mulching and the effective use of goat manure. In August of 2021 she harvested enough maize that she had extra to sell and was able to pay school fees. She is very impressed with what she’s learned, and the promise of learning more. Lucy says firmly, “I will make a tremendous effort until I have adopted all the skills.”
Kenya Igembe Program
Led by World Renew and Local Partner Anglican Development Services Mt. Kenya East