Riana Development Network hosted an inception meeting on 9th September 2019 in Magina, Western Kenya. Present at the meeting were Mrs Vivian Nyambane, Area Chief and a UK team comprised of Mr. Rodgers Orero, Executive Director, Riana Development Network, and Mrs. Janet Omondi, Trustee , Riana Development Network.. The Program Manager Mr. George O. Owino highlighted the benefits of focusing on poultry and small ruminant rearing for sustainable livelihoods. . He said ‘poultry and small ruminants provide a resilient livelihood for the majority of the population. Widows and orphans can have a stable income source whilst increasing food security’. The program developed its roots through seed funding from Afford UK. This scaled up to the current “Creating Decent Employment Opportunities Program” (CREDEEP), funded by DFID Small Charity Challenge Fund (SCCF) to support subsistence farmers in Magina, Western Kenya.
During the inception meeting, details on technical farming skills, gender equity, governance and promoting basic computer literacy and numeracy skills were shared.. A key aspect of the meeting was the dispersion of information on community training. This covered the importance of climate smart agriculture in building resilience to climate impacts, the worthiness of maize farming, keeping of local poultry, dairy goats and horticultural farming of cabbage, kales, night-shade, sorghum, onions. The concept of demonstration plots to showcase and intensively teach appropriate technologies and to test new methods alongside traditional methods was explained to participants. “If we are educated the community on how to best farm using better methods and materials, we are unlikely to suffer from food insecurity because of low yields and high prices of food. For those who gets goats we expect them to bring back the first kid of the goat for distribution to other families” said Mrs. Vivian Nyambane, Area Chief. The important use of farming techniques was to inform new tools and approaches while maximizing local efforts through partnerships and subsidies. This involved setting up the community members into groups and supporting them with registration and application for subsidized farm inputs at 1-Acre Fund.
Using program information, farmers would find it easy to coordinate logistics around application and distribution of farm inputs. The program manager stressed the importance of considering changing weather patterns, crop rotation and mixed farming to cushion against climate change and economic issues affecting farming. CREDEEP Program was supposed to support farmers with organizing silos, market value chains and a later on a credit and savings society when they can save their returns and take loans to plough back into farming and other family needs.
One important value was training farmers on record keeping as a useful resource that can help when it comes to planning new marketing and sales strategies. These records would include inventory of farm inputs, output volumes, stock, sales, etc. As a county where 60% of the population are dependent on farming training and capacity building is important for ensuring food security and improve incomes.
