Bett Kipsang.
The community capacity building initiatives being spearheaded by the Arid land Information Network (ALIN) in Ngarua has come of age and the community groups, which showed keen interest in ALIN’s programs, can now show the results; a typical example is Ngarua focal, which has grown to a Community Based Organization, formally registered with the name “Laikipia Center for Knowledge and Information. (LACKIN). The latter is currently hosting ALIN in Ngarua and both are stakeholders running the Ngarua Maarifa Center.
The NMK Project.
The “Njaa maarufuku Kenya” (N.M.K) ‘‘meaning hunger eradication in Kenya” is a project being implemented by the ministry of agriculture, with the support of other well wishers and development partners, the project seeks to improve food security by promoting crops and livestock production among the rural communities, with an aim, at poverty eradication by addressing the MDG goal number one.
The Ngarua focal group won a grant from the project, and they were supported to grow cassava, which is regarded as ‘‘Orphaned crop’’. The cassava species grown by the group are: K.M.E 1, X- NDORO (which are new, sweet and less fibrous) and Mucericeri- (which is sweet, tolerant to mosaic virus and scales)
The ministry organizes farmer field schools (F.F.S) Mrs. Kigano the agricultural office calls them the “school without walls”. In this schools groups attend trainings in the farms where a demonstration plots have been setup. NMK follows the procedure of a well-developed curriculum, a register of member’s attendance is marked every day and the schools have a clerk. The subjects of training entails topics, project based skills like land preparation and harvesting and other special topics outside the project but relevant for farmers to know.
I attended one meeting and I was moved by the participatory nature of the school classes. Old men and women visiting the school have mustered the 4 times hand club as the slogan of NMK.
How the grants is administered.
The N.M.K project is designed to support farmer initiatives in groups. Proposal forms are filled, and vetted at the district headquarters and forwarded for approval at the secretariat in Nairobi and then finally brought back to the division; where the successful groups are contacted and trained on specific skills to enable farmers develop the crop.
The lucky group receives Kenya shillings one hundred and twenty thousand. And there is a well-stipulated way of administering the grant until the end of the project; 30% of the amount is used for facilitation and 70% for the project, each group meets the cost of land preparation and the trainings take as long as 40weeks, depending on the nature of the project.
N.M.K provides seeds and meets the cost of transporting them from the source venue to planting venue. The farmers group involved undergoes training and crop inspection in a research-like-manner called Agro Ecosystem Analysis (A.E.S.A). This is the assessment of the environment for the living and non-living factors affecting the crops. Inspection looks into factors like crop variety, fertilizers, pests and disease among other factors.
In the case of Ng’arua is testing for the type of cassava plant where the demonstration plot is divided into three portions planted with three varieties of cassavas. A.E.S.A requires the farmers to concentrate on keen observation of how the crops are developing on daily basis.
Dissemination of Knowledge gained
The project is geared towards generation of first hand information based on knowledge and experience by the farmers involved. To realize this, the project organizes a field day where the community members are called in to share their experience and knowledge within the group. The field day is planned for a time when the crops are growing vigorously, that is at around forty weeks from the start.
After the field day, the ministry of Agriculture organizes a graduation ceremony where farmers are awarded with certificates of participation. Members who missed up to four meetings during trainings are not awarded with certificates.
After the end of the project duration, the ministry of Agriculture will maintain close contacts with the groups to gauge the impact of the project on the wider community. Data capture tools are used to gage how knowledge is spreading from one farmer to another.
Other projects supported by N.M.K
1. Dairy goats.
2. Drip irrigation kits.
3. Crops –Orphaned crops depending on the area.
4. Poultry keeping.
5. Bee keeping.
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