28 March 2006
Maize is Kenya’s most important food crop and provides nearly half of people’s calorific intake. But farmers struggle to increase production of this important crop for three main reasons. First, soils are increasingly infertile; second, maize streak virus is prevalent; and third, crops suffer competition from weeds because of late and ineffective weeding. In addition, blanket instructions on how to apply fertiliser to farmers’ crops that date back over a decade can result in the use of inappropriate nutrient applications to crops.
With support from DFID’s Crop Protection Programme, the NGO FIPS-AFRICA (Farm Input Promotions Africa) in collaboration with local mining and fertilizer companies, has helped more than 75,000 farmers to triple their yields, reduce production costs and improve food security in the region. If activities continue at this rate for another five years an estimated 300,000 farmers (producing for average family size of 5) would have adopted the fertiliser and the improved seed by 2011. Farmers who have already adopted the approaches are already reaping the benefits, now harvesting enough maize, beans and vegetable from a small plot to feed their families.
Margaret Ndukis, a farmer who has benefited from the project, is delighted with the results. “Before I planted the local variety of bean and harvested one sack, 90 kilos. Now I planted less, only 16 kilos of KB9 (improved bean variety) and am averaging almost two bags.”
The approach is no magic bullet, but rather the provision of information and application of technology that is suitable to the needs of the farmers, and sourced and supplied locally. Fertiliser – essential for improving yields – is traditionally sold in 50kg bags at a cost of around $25 per bag. This is too expensive for risk-averse farmers who survive on the equivalent of US$1 per day.
Different inputs can be packaged together
In response to advice from FIPS-Africa, Athi River Mining, a local company, packaged ‘Mavuno’ fertiliser in 1 kg bags, costing only 35 Kenyan shillings (25p). FIPS-Africa designed a promotion method in which farmers purchasing a 1 kg pack of Mavuno were given a 150 g packet of disease-resistant seed free-of-charge. These seed “mini-packs” were donated by co-operating seed companies. In addition, Monsanto agreed to package small 100g sachets of granular Roundup Max herbicide which are sold through local stockists for 200 shillings (£1.50). This herbicide is useful for introducing the concept of reduced tillage. More than 100,000 farmers have been supplied with the mini-packs, and farmers impressed with the performance have returned to their local stockists to purchase larger quantities of improved fertilizer, disease-tolerant seed, and herbicides to improve their food security.
As well as benefits to farmers, there have been significant economic spin-offs in the project area. More than 200,000 x 1kg bags of Mavuno fertiliser, and over 100 tonnes of disease-tolerant maize varieties have been sold. Athi River Mining Co. has increased its capacity to cope with increased demand for fertiliser, and has invested over US$8 million in fertiliser production.
The project follows on from another DFID-funded project (R8219, Improved access to appropriate farm inputs for integrated maize crop management by small-scale farmers in Embu and Kirinyaga Districts, Kenya), and is already scaling-up the project in the northern highlands of Tanzania, developing a model which could be extended to the southern highlands where farmers' maize production is severely constrained by denudation of the soil fertility. In all cases, the project is looking to the private sector to take over after a short time.
"FIPS-Africa is not working in isolation. Extension workers are there; researchers are there; suppliers of seed and fertilizer are there. These are the important ingredients which aren’t always brought together”, says Mark Rotich, a DFID Senior Programme Officer in Kenya.