For many years, Judith Wekulo, a farmer in Kakamega County, had low yields from her one-acre piece of land due to the lack of quality fertiliser and seeds.
The situation has, however, changed, thanks to a programme where farmers get fertilisers and certified seeds on credit, payable over one year. They are not required to provide collateral.
Wekulo says since she enrolled in the programme, maize production has increased from a paltry six bags to 15 bags last season.
“The planting season always found me without fertiliser and seeds for planting. I always planted late and I got very little because I used uncertified seeds,” says the mother of eight from Buhayi village in Kakamega.
She now harvests enough to feed her family and sell to pay school fees for her children.
Elctine Muchuma was contemplating on planting sugar cane in her one acre piece of land due to the difficulties in accessing farm inputs and lack of funds to prepare land during the planting season.
Maize yields, that had dropped to four bags annually, has now improved to 15 bags since she joined the programme after a friend convinced her to abandon the sugar cane idea.
Muchuma has since been able to start a small business of selling vegetables and fruits at Kaunda market after selling part of last year’s harvest.
Maize farmers in Western Kenya are benefiting from the social enterprise programme, Agrics Farm Inputs Credit, by Investing in Children and their Societies (ICS), a Holland-based non-governmental organisation.
The programme launched in Kakamega, Bungoma, Busia, Vihiga and Siaya counties in 2011 seeks to increase food production among smallholder farmers through increased access to farm inputs.
Under the programme, farmers are registered in groups where they guarantee each other to obtain fertilisers and certified seeds on credit without being required to provide collateral.
Raymond Chepkwony, programme business manager, says the programme attracted 1,592 farmers in 2012; 2,224 in 2013; 4,273 in 2014; and, 10,832 farmers have enrolled this season.
“This is a clear indication that timely access to farm inputs like fertiliser and certified seeds by many poor farmers remain a major problem that leads to failure to plant by some or crop failure all together,” says Chepkwony.
He says the package ranges from Sh5,700 for half acre plots, Sh10,600 for an acre, Sh15,500 for one and half acre and Sh20,400 for two acres.
“The programme has so far issued farm input credit worth Sh127 million and covered a total of 717.7 acres of land in the five counties with a repayment rate of 96.4 per cent in the last three years. Farmers are trained on best agricultural practices and technologies by our extension officers for free before supplies of the inputs is made. Monitoring is done to ensure members do what they are taught,” said Chepkwony.
He notes that the programme has a benevolent fund that covers the member, spouse and up to three children since the communities attach a lot of importance to funerals.
In case of death, a family receives Sh25,000 for the member, Sh20,000 for the spouse and Sh15,000 for up to two children.
He says the package for farmers also includes free seeds for vegetables like night shade, spider plant and kales to help them raise extra cash for use as they wait for their harvests.
The programme has also launched a poultry centre in Lurambi sub-county where farmers willing to diversify are loaned a package of 20 (four-week-old) chicks, 60kg of feeds and a 20 metres ‘Kuku net’ (a net that prevents chicks from straying from the hatch) at Sh10, 700 payable in seven months.
Chepkwony says the ultimate results of the programme is to help farmers form and register commercial villages that work more or less like co-operative societies so they can do collective purchases for inputs and marketing of their products for sustainability.
“We piloted last year and loaned 4,500 Kuroilers and Rainbow Roasters chicks to farmers and more than 30,000 farmers have applied this year,” said Willis Ony’injo, the head of the centre.