Forestry Training & Finance for 800 Farms in Kenya

INTRODUCTION

Greetings from all of us from DNRC family. We are humbled to express our sincere gratitude for your continued support through global giving which has enabled us to plant over 500,000 trees with 430 small scale farmers over the last 7 years. Farmers continue to enjoy early benefits of their planted trees such as sale of moringa powder and firewood.We are on the process of starting to process green charcoal (eco-charcoal) from the pruned tree branches and packaging it for sale. The impacts of annual growing trees continue to be clear to the farmers and to the community. There is a growing voice that the community is now receiving more rains because of the trees. The farmers are so proud to be part of this environmental regeneration and realizing that together they can do so much. Others who were not sure of the project now want to join after convinced it is working. Thanks again for all your support.

The following activities took place during the quarter.

The tree nursery

This year we target to propagate 60,000 trees of at least 25 different species. Most of activities in the tree nursery during the quarter included potting and sowing seeds in the beds. (See the attached picture of potting going on).

Farmers training/outreach program

During the quarter, most of the work was field visits to follow up on the last season planted tree seedlings and especially to the three new primary schools which are newly to the project. The 11 groups were visited and advised accordingly. This past rainy season alone they have planted over 45,000 tree saplings. Formal training of the group also continued during the quarter. (See attached picture of one of the trainings)

End of the year party.

The farmers had a come together party for the year on 18^th of December 2015. They come together twice per year to celebrate and entertain themselves, share their issues and their experiences as they work towards improving the environment, strengthening their social fabric and economic empowerment. The party also focuses on the key cultural issues which DNRC promotes such as the Kamba traditional dance, baskets and carvings (See attached party picture)

Challenges

Fetching water from the drying river with the donkeys causes extra labor, time and cost so need for reliable water at the site. As a permanent solution,we have started digging shallow well on site.

Focus for the next quarter

• Continue potting, sawing, and transplanting seedlings with the aim of meeting the 60,000 target.
• Make follow ups and trainings of the 11 groups we work with.
• Plan for the bi-annual party
• Recruiting more farmers.

DRYLANDS NATURAL RESOURCES CENTER (DNRC) PROGRESSIVE REPORT FOR SEPT-NOV. 2015
Introduction
Receive much greetings from DNRC family. We want to say thank you so much for your continued support which is enabling us to continue implementing DNRC goal of promoting sustainable development of Natural Resources of the dryland regions of Kenya in order to being improved livelihoods of marginalized communities and people living there. Our model of improving the environment, social welfare and economical empowerment is slowly shaping up as we are getting success stories from our 450 farmers we are working with. Farmers are already getting fruits from the old trees, selling moringa power from moringa leaves, firewood, poles and the microclimate is changing with stories of more rains than before and the region becoming cooler as well.
This quarter we were mainly working on issuing tree seedlings to the farmers to plant because it’s a rainy season. We managed to issue over 50,000 seedlings to the farmers and of different species mainly for fodder, fruits, fuel, timber, conservation and for medicine.
During this 3 months period, the following activities took place.
Tree Nursery
The main activities in our tree nursery were to maintain and issue tree seedlings to the farmers to plant. We issued over 50,000 seedlings to our 450 farmers and six schools we are working with in the area. Farmers have now planted and so far the seedlings are doing great because this time round we have been blessed with good rains.(See attached pictures)

Training/ Outreach program
During the quarter, DNRC staff mainly helped the schools to prepare and plant trees in the compound (establish food forests).This quarter we recruited 3 more schools making a total of 6 schools (4 Primary and 2 Secondary Schools).They were also trained on how to tend and take care of young tree seedlings (see attached pictures)

Other activities
We established swales in DNRC site to harvest rain water for our farms and also for demonstration to the farmers to emulate in their individual farms.( see attached pictures)

Limited water supply during the dry spell

• Transport of the seedlings for the farmers to their individual farms.
• Focus For the Next Quarter.
• End of year get-together with the farmers.
• Preparing work plans for next year

• dnrc progress report for Sept-Nov 2015 PICTURES (DOCX)