Drip irrigation Extension manual resolves technical hitch for group

“This forced us to bring water twice a week so that we could meet this demand,” says Mr.Kioko Kisuni, the group’s secretary

Mr.Kioko decided to visit Mutomo Maarifa Centre to look for a solution to his group members’ dilemma. An advisory committee member, he knew the Maarifa Centre has information resources that could help them. At the Maarifa Centre, he borrowed the Drip irrigation Extension Manual by ALIN.

Found a solution

 “The book has topics on system maintenance which gave us information on cleaning filters, flushing clogged drip lines, replacing and repairing damaged and broken parts,” says Mr.Kisuni.

Mr.Kisuni passed on this information to the group and they were able to solve the problem. “Now, we are once again enjoying the drip irrigation system and saving more time’” he says happily adding that as the secretary of group the manual has given him farm products recording skills. He also learnt better crop management skills and started his own vegetable growing venture. He thanks ALIN for the library resource saying that getting information from other arid and semi-arid areas has enriched his knowledge.

 “Learning from farmers in different regions has enriched our knowledge and given us encouragement that we too can do better under these harsh climatic conditions,” he says.

Mola Mathina Self-help group benefit from orphan crops

Now, the members have resorted to growing orphaned crops like sorghum, green grams and cow peas. Their efforts have been largely boosted by extension services from the District Agricultural Office.

Benedict Mathitu is an extension Officer with Mutomo District Agricultural Office. Part of his duties includes offering extension services to farmers in the district. But for him to play this role, relevant information is needed.

Mathitu  is a beneficiary of Mutomo Maarifa Centre where he borrows books touching on Agriculture and climate change. This is how he came upon Farmers’ Seed Production (New approaches and practices), a book that has information on seed production and retrieval. One of the chapters was on Principles of Food Production. With this knowledge, Mr Mathitu was able to train the group on adopting orphaned crops (traditional high value crops (THVCS), a technology the group embraced.


The Ministry of Agriculture also supplied the group with gardam sorghum seed during last year’s short rains.Due to the poor rains the group members realized a small harvest and each member harvested at least a bag. This is a big boost to the members since fellow farmers who had cultivated maize realized no harvest at all. “Before, we used to plant maize a lot. Most of the times, we realized no harvest. But ever since we received training on embracing orphaned crops from the Ministry of Agriculture staff, we have seen change,” says Angeline Kalungu, the group’s secretary.

Future plans

Mrs. Kalungu says that the group now plans to embrace more orphaned crops seed variety like green grams, millet and cow peas in the future. “We see this as the first step towards achieving food security for our families and generally improve our livelihood,” she adds.

Message to ALIN

Mr. Mathitu praises ALIN for their library services citing that the Maarifa Centre has a lot of untapped wealth in terms of information. “I encourage fellow extension officers to exploit the information in the library as it is simple, easily understandable and applicable. There are many books on all subjects and farmers, teachers, business community and anybody interested in farming can also borrow simple ones that are well illustrated!” concludes Mathitu.

Nurturing Mutomo ICT Gurus

...Employment status analysis showed that the non-working group was the majority with 50 % followed by farmers with 20%.Working/self-employed registered 16% while civil servants had 14%.

Additionally, analyzed level of education showed that 79% of the trainees had reached O-Level education while 14 % had college education and 3% had gone up Primary School.

The selection criteria

To get started with the training, interested community members were grouped into two for effective training given available computers. All the trainees were called for a brief meeting where the training objectives were explained and the trainer Mr. Phillip Kyule introduced to the trainees.  The Advisory Committee Chairman, Mr.Benson Nyamai also addressed the participants and emphasized to them how this was a rare opportunity which had to be exploited for the benefit of the community. Trainees were also informed about the role of Maarifa centre, the need for punctuality, and some basic norms and rules to be maintained during the training sessions.

 

The trainees were segregated into four training sessions which was:

• 8.00 a.m-10.00 a.m-trainees who live near Mutomo town and immediate surrounding (mostly youth)
• 11.00 a.m-1.00p.m- Trainees who live a distance from Mutomo (mostly youth)
• 2.00p.m- 4.00p.m-Farmers and adults who were 36 years and above
• 5.00 p.m -7.00p.m-The working class

The first group consisting of 58 trainees (31F, 27M) commenced training on 17^th January 2012. The trainees were of diverse ages. The youngest trainee was 17 years old while the oldest was 63 years old. This first class successfully completed the training session on 28^th February 2012 while the other group of 56 trainees (M -18, F- 38) is currently being trained.

What trainees want to do!

The trainees’ ideas in utilizing the skills are as diverse as their ages and professions. While youth hope to secure employment with the skills gained, business people want to gain record keeping skills while farmers hope to be self-reliant in ICT.

The trainer’s Experience

According to the trainer, Mr. Philip Kyule, training the diverse community members has been an eye opener for him. He says the trainees’ capacity to grasp the content lied largely on their ages and educational back ground adding that the adults tended more reserved around the machines as compared to youth.

Mr. Kyule adds that the training made him learn how to interact with people of different age groups, how to handle their different needs and how to train them despite the different rates of grasping content.

“ While the youth were enthusiastic and wanted to practically learn everything, the adults  wanted to learn record keeping skills and business applications like MS Excel’’ he says.

Lessons learnt

“I would highly recommend grouping the trainees according to ages and education as this enables the trainer to tailor the training according to the pace and understanding of the trainees” adds Philip.

Since all the students did not have the same learning capacity, Mr.Kyule says that he had to cope with students who were slow in grasping the content.

 He concludes that from the first experience he found out that for effective training, one has to always put emphasis in learning  his/her trainees’ areas of interest so as to ensure they get a high quality training and enjoy the exercise at the same time.

The most popular package!

Mr, Kyule says that Ms PowerPoint was most liked by the students because of its graphic features.

“Trainees loved to put animations in their presentations and watch the slideshows,” he says.

Listen to the trainees voices…

Anastasia Mueni Peter is a casual employee at Mutomo Mission Hospital.

“Part of my job requires me to order for supplies through a computer, but ever since I was employed, I used to stare at the computer because I had no idea how to use it” she says.                      

She adds that now that she has gained computer skills she can order supplies comfortably therefore saving a lot of time.

For more captivating testimonies, please follow these links:

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/03/utilizing-ict-skills-beneficiaries.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/03/this-is-my-planan-ict-training.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/02/father-and-daughter-in-class.html

http://mutomomaarifa.blogspot.com/2012/01/mutomo-maarifa-centre-free-ict-training.html

What is your contribution towards climate change?

........Climate change and poverty
This is a  process and a condition that are interrelated. While the effects of climate change and global warming will have direct effects on the natural environment especially on agriculture, the impact on human civilization is also of concern. Specifically, the impact of climate change and poverty is one of the greatest areas of human impact, and it proposes a burden on the global scale.
The majority of adverse effects of climate change are most experienced by poor and low-income communities around the world. Those in poverty have a higher chance of experiencing the ill-effects climate change more dramatically due to increased exposure and vulnerability
According to the United Nations Development Programme, developing countries suffer 99% of the casualties attributable to climate change

Reversing development

Climate change is globally encompassing and can reverse development in some areas in the following ways. Agricultural production and food security.Climate change will affect rainfall, temperature, and water availability for agriculture in vulnerable areas .Climate change could affect agriculture in several ways including productivity, agricultural practices, environmental effects, and distribution of rural space ^. Additional number affected by malnutrition could rise to 600 million by 2080. Climate change could worsen the prevalence of hunger through direct negative effects on production and indirect impacts on purchasing powers.
Water insecurity - Of the 3 billion growth in population projected worldwide by the midcentury, the majority will be born in countries already experiencing water shortages . As the overall climate of the earth warms, changes in the nature of global rainfall, evaporation, snow, and runoff flows will be affected  Safe water sources are essential for survival within a community. Manifestations of the projected water crisis include inadequate access to safe drinking water for about 884 million people as well as inadequate access to water for sanitation and water disposal for 2.5 billion people
Rising sea levels and exposure to climate disasters- Sea levels could rise rapidly with accelerated ice sheet disintegration. Global temperature increases of 3-4 degrees C could result in 330 million people being permanently or temporarily displaced through flooding.Warming seas will also fuel more intense tropical storms.
Ecosystems and biodiversity - Climate change is already transforming Ecological systems. Around one-half of the world’s coral reef systems have suffered bleaching as a result of warming seas. In addition, the direct human pressures that might be experienced include overfishing which could lead to resource depletion, nutrient and chemical pollution and poor land use practices such as deforestation and dredging. Also, climate change may increase the amount of arable land in high-latitude regions by reduction of the amount of frozen lands. A 2005 study reports that temperature in Siberia has increased three degree Celsius in average since 1960, which is reportedly more than in other areas of the world.
Human health - direct effect is increase in temperature-related illnesses and deaths related to prolonged heat waves and humidity. Climate change could also change the geographic range of vector-borne, specifically mosquito-borne disease such as malaria dengue fever exposing new populations to the disease . Because a changing climate affects the essential ingredients of maintaining good health: clean air and water, sufficient food and adequate shelter, the effects could be widespread and pervasive. The report of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health points out that disadvantaged communities are likely to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of climate change because of their increased exposure and vulnerability to health threats . Over 90 percent of malaria and diarrhea deaths are borne by children aged 5 years or younger, mostly in developing countries. Other severely affected population groups include women, the elderly and people living in small island developing states and other coastal regions, mega-cities or mountainous areas.

Security impacts

The concept of Human security and the effects that climate change may have on it will become increasingly important as the changes become more apparent ^.Some effects are already evident and will become very clear in the human and climatic short run (2007–2020). They will increase and others will manifest themselves in the medium term (2021–2050); whilst in the long run (2051–2100), they will all be active and interacting strongly with other major trends. There is the potential for the end of the petroleum economy for many producing and consuming nations, possible financial and economic crisis, a larger population of humans, and a much more urbanized humanity – far in excess of the 50% now living in small to very large cities . All these processes will be accompanied by redistribution of population nationally and internationally . Such redistributions typically have significant gender dimensions; for example, extreme event impacts can lead to male out migration in search of work, culminating in an increase in women-headed households – a group often considered particularly vulnerable . Indeed, the effects of climate change on impoverished women and children is crucial in that women and children in particular, have unequal human capabilities

Infrastructure impacts

The potential effects of climate change and the security of infrastructure will have the most direct effect on the poverty cycle. Areas of infrastructure effects will include water systems, housing and settlements, transport networks, utilities, and industry ^. Infrastructure designers can contribute in three areas for improving living environment for the poor, in building design, in settlement planning and design as well as in urban planning . The National Research Council has identified five climate changes of particular importance to infrastructure and factors that should be taken into consideration when designing future structures. These factors include: increases in very hot days and heat waves, increases in Artic temperatures, rising sea levels, increases in intense precipitation events, and increases in hurricane intensity . Accordingly, transportation decision makers continually make short- and long-term investment decisions that affect how infrastructure will respond to climate change.

REFERENCES:WIKIPEDIA
edugreen.teriin.org 

Its time for water harvesting!

Kasikali says that the water harvested serves his family’s domestic needs and he has also started a tree nursery where he plants and sells seedlings to supplement the family’s income

“I supply these seedlings to the community, schools and organizations “he points out adding that he has been able to make a stable income from the business.He has constructed a smaller tank besides the nursery where he stores water for irrigation.The tank has a thirty (30 ) Litres’ capacity and is attached with a tap and hosepipe.

                                              

                                                                                                    

Mr.Kasikali inspects the water storage tank he uses for watering his seedlings. Below, the tree nursery.

Challenges faced

Mr Kasikali’s venture has not been without setbacks. He points out that his main challenge is lack of proper equipment to expand the earth dam to collect more water.”I use wheelbarrow to move the dugout soil which is very tiring and slow’”he says.

Also, his neighbours expect him to assist with water and thus he ends up giving it to the neighbours than using it for the intended purpose.

Future plans

Mr. Kasikali plans to hire appropriate earth moving equipment to expand the dam to collect more water which he will then use to grow fodder for keeping dairy cattle .He also plans to expand his nursery and plant vegetables for own consumption and also for selling to have more income.

Conclusion

Mr.Kasikali is of the opinion that if farmers in the District embrace the proper water harvesting techniques, then famine will be a forgone calamity.

Cooking made easy

.......A beneficiary only contributes to the raw materials and the labour charge to benefit from the jiko.

Raw materials

“Anybody willing to benefit from the jiko should only contribute the raw materials and the labour charges,’’ says Maingi adding that the labour charges differ according to the size of the jiko.

The jiko is constructed using local materials. These are well baked bricks, cement, ash, sand, water, red oxide,murram and  charcoal dust.

These raw materials are used because they are good heat insulators and hence conserve heat.

Training

Maingi points out that GTZ will fund for 15 -20 installers to  participate on a eight (8 ) day training on the installation process. “Each one of them has already mobilized at least twenty (20) potential beneficiaries where they will construct the jikos as part of the training,’’ he adds.

The trained installers will then be able to construct these jikos to the community at a fee.

Advantages of the Domestic rocket stove

• The jiko is durable in that it is strong.
• Saves money and firewood
• Retains heat and cooks faster
• Smoke free and safe
• Beautifies the kitchen
• Environmentally friendly

  Mrs Catherine Vaati prepares a meal using the Domestic Rocket Stove.Below,the traditional three stone jiko

  

 

Let us embrace sustainable charcoal burning

........He adds that the department is on a mission to train Mutomo District community on the making of these kilns for forest sustainability. So far, the department has built two (2) demonstration kilns in Mutomo and Kanziko Locations.

 Unlike the earth kiln which requires big logs for charcoal production, often leading to felling of the whole tree, the modern kiln requires the branches and the whole tree is not felled. Likewise,the modern kiln retains 90% carbonization (conversion of organic matter into carbon ) as compared to the earth kiln which retains only 45 % carbonization.

Raw materials for the kiln are bricks and mud and no labour charges are needed for an association to benefit from this kiln.

Mbuko says that the Kenya Forests Act 2005 empowers associations to promote environmental conservation and capacity building of community on utilization of tree products.

A group willing to become an association dealing with charcoal products should have membership of fifty (50) people and above. The group then registers with the Ministry of Gender, Culture and Social Services. This certificate is then used to register with the Kenya Forest Services (KFS).The license from KFS,together with  the group’s constitution and minutes, is used to register with the office of the Attorney General.

 

How it is done

Burning charcoal using the modern kiln involves a particular process. The branches are cut and left to dry for a period of between four (4) to six (6) weeks. ‘’ Moist wood will not carbonize properly because of the high moisture content’’, points out Mbuko.

After the wood is dry, it is fend to the kiln through the side entrance until it is half full then remaining space is fed wood through the top entrance. The upper entrance is covered with metal sheet and then sealed with mud. The wood is then ignited and the side entrance closed with bricks

Smoke coming out of the breathers is monitored until it changes from dark to a bright blue. Depending on the size of the kiln, this takes between six to eight days.

‘’When the smoke turns to blue this means that the whole lot has been ignited’’ says Mbuko’’ then the breathers are closed with bricks to retain heat for carbonization which takes two days.” he continues.

The entrances and breathers are then opened after the carbonization process.

Marketing

Mr.Mbuko says that because an association produces in bulk, members can determine the price for their products so that every member sells at the price they have agreed on. All the associations can also get together and source for transportation for their products.

Advantages of the modern brick kiln

The modern kiln is environmental friendly in that only tree branches are used hence enabling the tree to regenerate.This ensures forest conservation.

The kiln takes minimum time to feed wood and ignite Says Mbuko’’ earth kilns are very time consuming in that you have to keep on checking whether there is fire leakage while with the modern kiln you relax and wait for the designated days.’’ 

Disadvantages of the modern brick  kiln

The quantity of charcoal is low in that only a given amount of wood can fit in the kiln at a time. 

Conclusion

Mr Mbuko is of the opinion that if the current trend of cutting down trees for charcoal burning continues, the district will be a desert come 2030.’’ But if the community embraces this new technology, our forests will start healing, ‘’ he concludes

He is however optimistic that residents will embrace this new technology.