Forestry Training & Finance for 800 Farms in Kenya

INTRODUCTION

Much greetings from Drylands Natural Resources Centre (DNRC). We hope this report finds all of us well despite the challenges posed by the current world pandemic; Covid – 19. We are thankful that we are managing to operate during this challenging period where most organizations shut down. This is possible because of your kind and continuous support. God bless. As we send you this progress report, we are thankful for your support which is enabling us to work towards achieving our main goals of environmental regeneration, community regeneration/strengthening and economic development. By training our 800 farmers and planting diverse dryland tree species, our farmers are getting tangible benefits including and not limited to; constant supply of firewood in the house holds, income from sale of extra firewood and other tree products like moringa powder and seeds, increased vegetation cover thus boosting soil building and soil fertility as well as biodiversity. As time goes by, the canopies continue to grow big and the micro climates continue to enlarge slowly by slowly. This makes the area cooler and that’s favourable for crop production and in the event of insufficient rains, the crops manage to yield. During this reporting quarter, the following activities took place: Propagation of different tree species, potting, general tree nursery management, training and individual farmer follow ups. Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, DNRC staff in charge of the nursery were busy putting up nursery beds for different tree species as well as transplanting the same into plant pots. The diverse tree species included: Mangoes, citrus, lemon, passion, leucena, Jerusalem thorn, gravelia, Robusta, guavas, eucalyptus, pawpaw, avocado, mull berry etc. Other activities in the nursery included: potting, watering, weeding, tree root pruning and general tree nursery management.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING

During the reporting quarter, DNRC training and outreach personnel were busy training and doing individual farmer follow ups. The trainings majorly focused on general woodlot management with sustainable tree pruning. The march rains have failed thus farmers have not been able to gap as expected. Our mid-year party which normally takes place in June has been affected by the corona pandemic but we continue to mobilize farmers to continue preparing for the same hoping the pandemic will slow down and allow us to carry on the party. We introduced kitchen gardens to our farmers as way of increasing nutrition for the covid- 19 adaptation and mitigation. During the quarter, the staff were busy visiting individual farmers and helping with the challenges they are facing especially with the pests in the kitchen gardens.

CHALLENGES

• Failed March-April rains leading to low tree gapping by the farmers.
• Water as our nursery expand as we propagate more seedlings, more water is needed yet we don’t have water on site and our seasonal river is drying up early due to low March –April rains

 FOCUS FOR NEXT QUARTER

• Continue propagating more seedlings to meet our target 80,000 seedlings targets.
• Continue mobilising farmers to prepare for the upcoming party.
• Training farmers on tree management and sustainable pruning and harvesting.

INTRODUCTION

We hope this report finds all of us well. We are happy to share with you our progress report on forestry training and finance for the last three months. We thank you for your unwavering support even during this covid. Your support continue to enable us to work with the 800 small holder farmers in the drylands of Kenya to improve livelihoods, protect the environment and build communities through tree planting and trainings. Since 2009, we have continued to plant different and multipurpose tree species among smallholder farmers and so far, the first planted trees continue to improve the local microclimate, increase local biodiversity and farmers’ incomes from the sale of timber and non timber products. The community is more organised and the social fabric continue to strengthen as they work together and train together to bring desired outputs and impacts as they envision them and guided by DNRC. Apart from ecosystem services being realized from older planted trees, farmers continue to benefit financially from the sale of Moringa seeds and leave powder, firewood, poles and fruits from the trees. During this reporting quarter, the following activities took place under this project: Tree seedlings issuance to the farmers and schools. Maintenance of the tree nursery, Farmers follows ups to their individual farms and the end of the year get together preparations. Below are the details of these activities.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, the nursery staff were busy issuing farmers with ready to plant tree seedlings to plant in their individual farms during October-December rains. A total of 59,000 seedlings were issued to our farmers and 12 schools we work with to plant in their private farms and over 10,000 seedlings issued to other people outside the community. DNRC staff also continued to propagate and take care of smaller tree seedlings in the nursery to be planted in March-April rains.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, the outreach staff were majorly involved in follow ups to make sure farmers are ready for tree planting. This is by making sure that farmers are preparing holes according to the number of trees they are able to plant during this rain season. All the 14 groups were visited and were trained in dryland tree holes preparations, tree pruning and sustainable harvest of the branches and tree care.

BI-ANNUAL FARMERS GET TOGETHER

Every year, all the 800 farmers meet twice in June and December to share experiences, eat together and also celebrate their achievements together through local songs and dances. So during this reporting quarter, DNRC outreach staff were busy coordinating and mobilising farmers for the end of year farmers get together party which took place in 18^th, December 2020 at DNRC grounds. Due to Covid protocols, only representatives of each group were able to physically attend. The government health protocols by then allowed only 200 people gatherings and held in open places. We followed all the health protocols to the latter and had very successful get-together without any cases of Covid in the community.

CHALLENGES

• Permanent water source remain our major challenge especially during the dry seasons
• Lower funds/resources mainly due to global covid effects on the economy

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Farmers trainings and follow ups
• Tree seedlings propagation with a target of 80,000 per year
• Education on covid protocols to our farmers and in the DNRC premises

Links:

• website