Excellent! - excellentdevelopment.com

A visit with Josephine Kavita on her farm - by Alvera Stern, one of our MCC secondees.

---

Josephine is 27 years old and has been farming for about five years. She has three children, two girls and a boy. Her farm is on a very hilly slope of land. We approached her farm on a dirt road through terraced land. The turn-off led into a long avenue bordered by tall banana trees on one side and very newly planted banana trees on the other. Terraces were all around. The terraces were some of the best constructed I have seen: deep trenches and high mounds, all immaculate, all ready to catch the rain and prevent it from running down the steep slopes. There was a cut-off ditch leading from the road into the holes holding the new trees, well prepared to catch water run-off from the road. From the very beginning of our visit to Josephine’s farm it was clear that she is harvesting the water and using the land available to her carefully and efficiently.

Josephine fetched some chairs for us and placed them in the shade of her house and we sat down for a good chat...

"How much land do you have here?"

“I started with 2 acres of hilly land five years ago, and now I have 2 ½ acres. I want to buy another ½ acre in the future, and I think that will be about all I can handle! I plant a variety of crops including maize, beans, sorghum, dolichos lab lab, cowpeas, pigeon peas, cassava, and sweet potatoes. Before working with Excellent Development Kenya (EDK) I used only to plant maize and beans.”

Josephine has planted many fruit trees including bananas, mangoes, lemon, avocado, and mulberry. She has sisal planted around her property borders. She has several stands of trees on the slopes around her crops: we saw leucenia, moringa, neem, erythrina, senna, gravillea, casaurina, and muvuavui. Many of these trees are already mature after only four to five years, showing that they have been well watered and fertilized.

“I am reserving some of my land to plant more trees. The Nzaaya community self help group has a nursery but does not supply me with as many trees as I need. I use the trees for medicine and for firewood, and I want to plant more fodder trees for my animals.”

Josephine took us to see her animals. She has 2 cows and 5 goats. The she-goat had just produced twin kids the previous day and very proudly showed them off to us.

“I am not milking the goat right now, but I get about 4 ½ litres of milk from the cow, who also has a very young calf. I will take more milk when the kids and calf are a bit older and need less."

Josephine zero grazes her livestock and uses the rich manure from their shed on her crops.

“This year I have enough manure for my fields and trees – I will not need to purchase any.” The lush growth on her hill slopes gave evidence that she was right. She points out that she gets more income from the animals than she does from her crops, as the crops feed the family. Her produce is used to feed her family of two girls and a boy, ages 13, 12, and 11, and a hired hand. She estimates that ¾ of her produce goes to feed the family year round and she does not buy any food. She sells the remainder of her produce. The amount of produce that she has available for selling after the needs of her family are met has been increasing steadily each year.

“How did you learn such good water harvesting and crop production methods?”

“When I started farming I joined the Nzaaya community self-help group. They were working with Excellent Development Kenya and learning many new techniques for saving water and planting crops. Two ideas from Excellent Development Kenya were especially important to me: Firstly, I learned time management techniques. The one that really made a difference was to zero graze my animals. That action immediately freed up my time as I did not have to herd them. And I got much more manure without labour. Then I had time to work on the terracing that would save me much water and conserve the soil.” She has now terraced all of her land, and has even more time to work on the crops. Secondly, the concept that you make more money if you sell to the consumer rather than a middle man has made a great difference to her income. She learned this and other points on business when Excellent Development Kenya sent her to Nairobi for a seminar in 2006.

She also has learned much from her Nzaaya community self help group meetings. They work together on members’ farms, exchange visits with other groups, and talk and exchange many ideas.

“I always take a good hard look at what everyone else is doing, and if they are doing something I am not, I come back home and copy it to see if it works for me.”

Nzaaya has built several sand dams, which Josephine has helped to build. The nearest one to her farm is 3 kilometres away. She has a donkey that helps to carry water for household use. Because of her extensive use of cut-offs from the road, terracing on the hillsides, and use of cover crops and manure she does not have to do much irrigating of her trees and crops.

Josephine would like to get into vegetable production on about ¼ acre that presently has a healthy stand of pigeon peas and maize. “I am thinking of planting sukuma wiki (kale), spinach, carrots, big peppers, and watermelon. However, I will need to buy some fencing for around the garden, as my chickens will demolish the vegetables if there is no fence.”

“Why do you not zero graze the chickens?”

“I would rather the chickens be free range and the vegetables be confined! When I get the fence set up, I will irrigate the vegetables. I will ask for some training in growing vegetables from Excellent Development Kenya, as I have not grown them before.”

Josephine is obviously a master learner and has taken advantage of all the information available to her. We asked her why she thought she was having such success on her farm.

“First of all I know there is something good in the soil. It has wealth. Others are not aware that there is much they can get from the soil if they treat it right. Also, others do not work as hard as I do. They need to learn to aim higher and achieve more. My aim right now is to educate my children.”

“What level of education do you want for them?”

“That is their decision - as far as they want to go!”

After we toured her farm and were about to leave, Josephine offered us “tea” which we gratefully accepted. Tea turned out to be lunch, a heaping plateful of very tasty mashed cassava, tender pigeon peas, and fresh maize, all from her farm. And fresh milk from her cow. It was a fitting end to our visit with this master farmer.