admin | July 30, 2018
This week’s Farmer story from Tanzania talks about the benefits of organic farming. Our Script of the week is the success story of a Kenyan organic farmer.
George Opondo is a practising organic farmer in the Nyanza Province of Kenya.
In Kenya, the climate and soils are often not suitable for high-input farming. Hybrid and improved seeds often require good rains and very fertile soils to yield well. If conditions are not good, hybrid seeds may actually yield less than local seeds. Also, sometimes the rains fail and there is no harvest at all. If a farmer invests a lot of money in buying inputs, then this money may be wasted.
In contrast, George Opondo saves seeds from the plants that do well in his fields, which ensures that his crops are well adapted to local conditions. He also uses trench composting to fertilize his crops. He digs a long trench, fills it with compostable materials, then plants his seeds on mounds on either side of the trench. The seeds grow and yield well, fed by the composted materials in the trench.
This script was written by someone who works with the Ugunja Community Resource Centre (UCRC) in the Siaya District of Nyanza Province. UCRC believes that organic farming, which relies on as few inputs as possible from outside the farm, is more appropriate for the needs of many farmers.
In this script, you will hear about George Opondo’s experience with using a trench compost bed to improve the soil, and about his use of traditional herbs to treat and prevent animal diseases.