The members of Laikipia Center for Knowledge and information (LACKIN), and Ngarua ALIN focal group are unique in the way they share knowledge. Farmer-to-farmer exchange visits organized every month, where participants’ visits each other’s farms to learn new farming techniques, challenges and solutions to problems experienced.
On 23rd October 2010. Eleven members of the group converged and went round three farms. At Mr. Thomas Ngwiri’s farm they saw: pineapples, grain amaranth, ground nuts, Oranges fruits, Cassava. Mr. Ngwiri managed to harvest 40Kgs of amaranth, which he hopes to market through the Sokopepe at the Maarifa center.
The second visit was in the family of Mr. Peter Mwaniki. He keeps poultry, dairy cattle, fruits farming, and have a unique water harvesting and simple irrigation for his vegetable garden. He uses improvised technology like the Knack sack sprayer’s nozzle fitted to a pipe to sprinkle water on his crops. Mwaniki obtains water from an earth dam, and uses a hand pump to force water to the vegetable garden.
The next farmer was Sam David; the unique feature in his farm was the fish bond and a green house, both made by him self. Water from atop green house is directed to the fish bond using polythene curved in a ‘U’ shape a supported by tree frames. He had planted capsicum in the green house. Capsicum does better than tomatoes, and have higher value.
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