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|  | | Small-Scale Extension Farmer (Kenya) | | ‘Good things don’t come easy. You have to work hard ‘, says Francis Iregi Kafui, as he proudly surveys the one and a half acre plot that he farms to support his family and himself at Kiambogo in Self Help’s Gilgil project area in Kenya.
The 56 year old father of six is one of 10 Self Help extension farmers in Kiambogo, and a mentor to 10 other local ‘follower’ farmers whom he is supporting and showing how to adopt the farming methods and practices that he has learned since Self Help began working in the locality nearly two years ago.
He has diversified his farming activities widely since becoming involved with the project, and how grows onions, beans, Irish potato, kale and other vegetables on his plot, alongside sweet potato, pepper and cabbage from seed provided by Self Help.
Francis says that since receiving initial training and support from Self Help he has adopted a system of crop rotation, while his method of growing sweet potatoes on raised beds, and kale and other vegetables in compost filled fertility trenches, he has seen his crow yields increase significantly.
‘In previous years I used to harvest around 40kg of beans, but this year I extect to get around 180kg’, he says. ‘My onions, which I am now growing in rows for the first time will yield around 3,000KS (€33) this year’.
Francis is currently in the process of building a rain-harvesting pond on his lands to enable him to grow tomatoes and onions for the first time during the dry season, and is a multiplying sweet potatoes with the support of Self Help, for distribution to other local farmers next year.
He has planted more than 50 agro-forestry trees to develop a homestead wood lot to meet his family’s future fuel needs, and is also producing the anti-malaria artemacia crop, which he sells to a Kenyan company.
He meets his ‘follower’ farmers regularly to give them advice and training, and visits them at their homes when they are planting. ‘I believe that this system works – I was provided with the training, and I am now in a position to share my knowledge with others’, he says. |
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| | The 'extension farmer' system employed by Self Help enables the organisation to disseminate the technologies and approaches being promoted by the organisation to a wider number of small-scale farmers in the extension areas where it is working. | | Related Topics | | | | | |
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| | | | | Self Help Africa is a limited liability company. Company number: 105601 Charity No. 6663 (Ireland)
The organisation has offices in Ireland at: Annefield House, Dublin Road, Portlaoise, Co. Laois Tel: 00 353 (0)57 8694034 - Fax: 00 353 (0)57 8694038, and in the United Kingdom at : Second Floor Suite, Westgate House, Dickens Court, Off Hills Lane, Shrewsbury, Shropshire SY1 1QU. Tel : 0044-(0)1743 277170
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