Moringa to support Kenyan farmers health & wealth

INTRODUCTION

Happy New Year greetings from DNRC family. We hope you all had a wonderful year 2016 and 2017 is off for a good start. Thank you for your continuous financial support to our moringa project. Your support is enabling us to plant as many as about 60,000 tree seedlings per year among which 3,000 moringa seedlings are being planted .These moringa seedlings are being used for nutrition and also sale of processed leave powder and seeds for income and wealth creation among the now 600 households we are working with. Apart from providing nutrition among the farmers and creating wealth, moringa as a tree is also providing microclimate and improving the surrounding environment. It’s helping to increase crop yields due to partial shading as we work in drylands. Note moringa aloefera is an agroforestry tree so farmers intercrop with other crops without any negative effects to crops. During the quarter, the main activities included: issuing moringa seedlings and other agroforestry tree seedlings to the farmers, field follow ups by our extension workers to guide the farmers on how to plant and tend the already big moringa trees in their farms. Below is the detailed activities during the quarter.

ISSUING MORINGA SEEDLINGS

During the quarter, both the nursery and the outreach personnel were involved in issuance of the 3,000 Moringa seedlings to the 600 farmers and the 6 schools. This took place during Nov- Dec. rains. Farmers are in 13 groups and are scheduled to come at different dates according to the groups and in the first one week of rains so that when they plant don’t have to water but utilize moist soils from rains. At the same time the farmers were also issued with the other tree seedlings of over 25 different tree species.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING

During the quarter, the outreach personnel were involved in training the farmers on how to tend the flowering moringa trees as well as follow up the just planted moringa seedlings. Key emphasis was on the newly recruited members as this was their first time to plant moringa and great care needed to be taken because the seedlings are delicate as the stems are very soft when young and break easily.

CHALLENGE AND RECOMMENDATION

• So far we have over 6,000 mature moringa trees producing a lot of leaves and seeds and with no regular market, farmers are not fully benefiting from them. We are trying to sensitize and promote moringa both locally and internationally in our networks.

FOCUS FOR NEXT QUARTER

• Harvest moringa seeds
• Propagating more moringa seedlings
• Source for more market for moringa products