Forestry Training & Finance for 800 Farms in Kenya

INTRODUCTION

Warm greetings from Drylands Natural Resources Centre family. We trust that you and yours are safe and well during this Covid-19 pandemic. Our farmers and DNRC staff are safe and so is the whole community. We don’t have Covid-19 case in our community yet and we continue to take care and follow the guidelines. Just like other Countries, the effect of the pandemic is hitting hard to our economy and our program. Most of the families we serve their family members have been laid off and with market day’s shutdowns, social gathering banned and curfew, livelihoods and food security have been seriously affected. DNRC as an organization has also been affected both programmatically financially. We can only meet and train our farmers individually in their farms unlike earlier group trainings. We stopped our regular short courses on permaculture/agro ecology and also volunteers/visitors visits program which supported DNRC financially and her sustainability. This has slowed down our activities substantially though we continue to help our farmers cope with this pandemic by starting organic kitchen gardens and continuous tree planting especially fruit trees for increased food and nutrition security.

In the flipside, we are happy to report that through this project you have been funding, our farmers have been more resilient during this Covid 19 pandemic due to our diversified tree species. Farmers have been able to eat many fruits ranging from avocado, pawpaw, guavas, mangoes, oranges etc. thus boosting their immunity through increased food and nutrition. They are also selling extra fruits for income. They have also being selling timber/poles for income to cushion them from lost livelihoods. The trees have also been providing “feeling good” to our farmers as they visit and meditate in their woodlots especially during this time of ‘loneliness” and ‘depression’ due to social distancing and isolation. We can only say thank you so much for your continued financial support which has played a big role towards the success of this project and making our 800 smallholder farmers more resilient to Covid-19.

During the reporting quarter, the following activities took place: Individual farmers on farm training and follow up, tree seedling issuance and tree seedling propagation and general nursery management.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, major DNRC activities were propagating more trees to be issued in October-December rains. The nursery team was busy soil potting with a total of 5,000 seedlings sown in the plastic pots/bags. Some of the tree species sown and potted included: pawpaw, Gravellia, mangoes, eucalyptus camandulensis, Citrus, avocado and melia. The 25, 242 tree species balance which remained during October-December rains issuance were also issued to the farmers for gapping during March- April 2020 rains. The remaining few are being altered and managed in the nursery.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, our outreach personnel visited 140 individual farmers and trained them on their farms. Due to covid-19, the follow up and training included kitchen gardens for self-help vegetable production. We stopped group farmers training and only two groups out of the 14 groups and 12 schools were trained before covid-19.

CHALLENGES

• Due to Covid-19 challenges, we have resulted to only individual farmer’s farms training and follow up. This need more resources in terms of personnel and transport which is a challenge also. The way forward is to appeal to our faithful donors to continue helping us and hope things will normalize and go back to group training and our shortcourses training and visitors for boost our income for smooth running of other programs.

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Trainings and follow ups of individual farmer’s farms.
• Continue with propagation of more seedlings and especially fruit trees as a way of adapting to Covid- 19.

INTRODUCTION

Warm New Year greetings from Drylands Natural Resources Centre family. Once again we are happy to share with all of you the progress we have made so far on forestry training and finance project for the last three months. We can only say thank you so much for your continued financial support which has played a big role towards the success we share today. Our now cumulatively 800 smallholder farmers who are geographically located and in 14 groups covering are radius of about 7 km from DNRC location continue expanding their agroforestry program. Over the years, Most of the farmers have filled their set aside land for environmental regeneration and now we have introduced them to perimeter tree planting so that they continue growing the forestry cover in community as well as their income from trees and tree products. Since farmers neighbour each other, the idea is when everybody eventually plants their perimeter, they form another forest since trees are planted near each other. This is moving us closer to our goal of environmental regeneration as well as a certain percentage of economic development as quite a big percentage of farmers are able to sale excess firewood for income after pruning and other tree products. Our intensive trainings and follow ups, working in solidarity and our parties continue to bring farmers together thus constantly building the social fabric.

During the reporting quarter, the following activities took place: Farmers annual get together party, DNRC staff planning for the year 2020, field follow ups for the planted seedlings both for the schools and farmers, seed sawing in the tree nursery, potting, transplanting and general nursery management.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, after December tree issuance 2019, the nursery was left with a balance of 25, 242 of 25 different species to be maintained in the nursery as they await the next rain season in March- April 2020 for gapping purpose. The nursery team was busy potting where by a total of 4000 pots were done. Sawing of the following seeds was also done, Gravellia, mangoes, kay apple, and eucalyptus camandulensis. Other activities in the tree nursery were watering and wedding.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, we had our annual get together which brought all the farmers together to celebrate. Key agenda was to; Share experience, prepare, display and test Kamba traditional foods, dance Kamba traditional music and speeches from invited guests. Also during the reporting quarter, the outreach personnel were busy doing follows. Out of the 12 schools we work with, 9 schools were visited and their woodlots and food forests were coming up well. Also during the reporting 3 groups out of the 14 groups we work with were visited and they were advised accordingly on the challenges they were facing. Two groups were trained on woodlot management and did practicals on thinning and pruning. One group which is newest was trained on food forest establishment and its importance.

PLAN FOR THE YEAR 2020

During the reporting quarter, DNRC staff had their annual staff party and planning for the year 2020 with the following to focus.

• Maintain a tree nursery capacity of 80,000 seedlings
• Strengthen and prioritize agro ecology with the farmers.
• Do local mobilization within the groups to make sure that no one is left out and increase the members.
• Increase local courses training especially Permaculture/Agroecology

CHALLENGES

• Due to prolonged rains last rain season leading to waterlogging of soils, Melia vonkensii and Azadirachta indica seedlings which don’t like logged water some dried up.

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Gapping of the dried seedling during the previous rain season both farmers and schools farms.
• Trainings and follow ups both to the farmers groups and schools.
• Continue with propagation of more seedlings to achieve our planed target.