by AATF Africa I come from Itando village in Chavakali division of Vihiga district in Western Kenya. I have been a farmer since 2003. I practice what you would call intensive farming. I grow a mixture of crops like avocado, sweet potatoes, various types of vegetable, beans and I also rear chicken, goats and cows. Land […]
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by AATF Africa My name is Daniel Ochieng Teti and I am a small scale farmer in Kisumu North district in Kenya. I grow various food crops such as maize, beans and millet. Growing maize is my most important farming activity as it is my family’s main source of food as it is for most families […]
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by AATF Africa Imagine investing in a venture and reaping nothing at the end of the day. This is the sad story of Monica Mbeya – a primary school teacher who has been watching desperately as her maize crop is ravaged by the notorious Striga weed. Monica like many other farmers in Kosele village, Rachuonyo district in Western […]
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by AATF Africa Richard Amolo takes this writer around his farm. He just ploughed it in readiness for the short rains that were expected the previous week. Yes, the rains delayed. Amolo says he is afraid they may fail altogether. But there’s one thing that no longer gives him sleepless nights -the Striga weed, known locally as Kayongo. He’s […]
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by AATF Africa Busia is among the most fertile of Kenya’s 47 counties. Its rich soils receive between 760mm and 2000mm of rainfall. “Most parts of the County have high potential for agriculture and promises of faster growth,” according to the Busia County Integrated Development Plan 2013-2017. Yet this frontier region lags behind in virtually all […]
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by AATF Africa Tormented by unreliable rains and the destructive Striga weed, he was ready to try any crop that came his way. “When you are sick and you don’t know what ails you, you will take any concoction hoping that one of them will eventually cure you. In farming that is what I had been doing for […]
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by AATF Africa Ms Catherine Otiende never believed at any given day she would produce enough food from her ¾ acre farm to feed her family and by extension the extended family. The young mother of four children who hails from Dago village, Nyahera Location of Kisumu District had been planting the local maize varieties for […]
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by AATF Africa Striga has been the main cause of hunger and by extension poverty in many households in Nyanza and western regions of Kenya. Many families have fought the weed popularly known as kayongo to no success by use of various methods such as uprooting the weed, use of manure and inorganic fertilisers. Ms Mebo Chebor […]
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by AATF Africa If all arable land in Tanzania could be put under maize, the most preferred cereal staple, it would feed the entire East African region. The most astonishing fact is that over 600,000 hectares have been rendered useless by Striga weed, commonly referred to in Kiswahili as kiduha in the region. Striga weed is known to cause […]
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by AATF Africa Vitalis Kwena Oduor is a small-scale farmer from Nyamwanga Village of Busia District in Western Kenya. He grows various crops including maize, beans, sorghum, cassava, ground nuts and sweet potatoes on his six acre piece of land. Vitalis’ farming experience dates back to 1978. Like any other farmers in the region, maize is […]
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