Africa Harvest
Annual Report 2009
Africa free of hunger, poverty and malnutrition
Sorghum, the fifth most important food grain globally, and second after maize in Africa, may be the continent’s most important food source in future. Climate change experts predict that parts of Africa will become hotter and drier, increasing the demand for heat- and droughttolerant crops like sorghum. This Kenyan woman and her children walk in their sorghum field, not quite aware of the consequences of climate change.
Africa Harvest
Annual Report 2009
Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI) Nairobi • Johannesburg • Washington DC • Toronto
2010
Citation: Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI) 2010. Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009. Nairobi, Kenya: 80 pp. All information in this booklet may be quoted or reproduced, provided the source is properly acknowledged, as cited above. © 2010 Africa Harvest ISBN 978-0-620-48585-2
For further information about Africa Harvest or additional copies of this publication, contact Africa Harvest at: NAIROBI (HQ) 3rd Floor, Whitefield Place, School Lane, Westlands PO Box 642 Village Market 00621 Nairobi, Kenya Tel: + 254 20 444 1113 Fax: + 254 20 444 1121 Email: kenya@africaharvest.org
WASHINGTON DC Blake Building Farragut Square 1025 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 1012 Washington DC 20036, USA Tel: +1 202 828 1215 Fax: +1 202 857 9799 E-mail: usa@africaharvest.org
JOHANNESBURG 18 Tudor Park, 61 Hillcrest Avenue, Blaigwore, Randburg PO Box 3655 Pinegowrie 2123 Gauteng, South Africa Tel: + 27 11 781 4447 Fax: + 27 11 886 0152 Email: southafrica@africaharvest.org
TORONTO Scotia Plaza 40 King Street West Suite 3100 Toronto, ON, Canada M5H 3Y2 Tel: 416-865-6600 Fax: 416-865-6636 www.canada@africaharvest.org
Or visit the Africa Harvest website: www.africaharvest.org Cover: Sorghum farmers celebrating Compiled by: Daniel Kamanga, Director, Communications Program, Africa Harvest Julia Kagunda, Senior Communications and Administrative Officer, Africa Harvest Editing and design: BluePencil Infodesign, Hyderabad, India • www.bluepencil.in Printing: Pragati Offset Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad, India • www.pragati.com
Contents About Africa Harvest Message from the Acting Board Chairman, Mr Joseph Kibe Message from the CEO, Dr Florence Wambugu Technical Program Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project Technology Deployment Program Farmer group mobilization, formation, training and governance: cutting across all projects Why group dynamics training? Importance of working with small-scale farmer groups Tissue Culture Banana Project Scaling out the benefits of TC banana technology in Kenya through the whole value chain model Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming Ngariama anglican church of Kenya Saint Benedict Secondary School: setting the pace for other institutions Linking farmers to markets Farmer-led extension in rural development through training of trainers From Miraa to bananas Tee Cee Banana Enterprises Ltd. Trees for Energy Project Farmer sees the future of the world in trees Developing entrepreneurs at the grassroots level Rehabilitation of Kyambolo dam in Kitui district Gadam Sorghum Project Climate confirms sorghum as strategic crop The Vice President visits Pauline Mary Kimwele’s sorghum field Community Engagement: McLaughlin Rotman Project, Canada Critical gaps Communication: gateway to community engagement towards technology adoption Communication for Development International outreach through media Finance, Administration and New Business Development Board matters Internship program Staff matters Staff capacity building Profiles of Board Members Africa Harvest staff Financial performance Acronyms and abbreviations
2 3 4 6 7 12 13 14 15 16 17 24 25 26 27 29 31 33 36 37 41 42 44 45 48 52 53 54 56 60 64 65 66 66 69 70 73 76 78
About Africa Harvest Vision Africa free of hunger, poverty and malnutrition Mission To use science and technology to help the poor in Africa achieve food security, economic well-being and sustainable rural development. Africa Harvest’s approach for achieving its mission and vision‌ 1. Implementing technical projects with rural communities; 2. Scaling up the impact of successful model projects; 3. Sharing the lessons learned through modern communications-for-development approaches; 4. Facilitating research and development of new crops and products using genetic modification techniques in partnership with others; 5. Building human and institutional resources with a focus on strengthening science and technology in Africa.
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Message from the Acting Board Chairman, Mr Joseph Kibe
During the year under review, the effects of the global food crisis that made headlines the previous year continued. In Kenya, nearly 10% of the population, or 3.5 million people were hit by drought and high food prices. The Africa Harvest Board provided leadership that enabled the organization to align its programs in order to mitigate some of the food insecurity and malnutrition in Africa. Work with the communities was supplemented by increased policy intervention; I am glad to report that African governments are paying greater attention to basic food crops such as banana and sorghum. Given Africa Harvest’s focus on so-called orphan crops, the Board welcomed the Management’s efforts in securing two projects that helped test the robustness of our community engagement model. The East African Malting Limited (EAML) Gadam Sorghum Project sought to increase sorghum production in marginal areas while the McLauglin Rotman Centre in Canada supported efforts to develop a replicable, community engagement model for Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) projects. The Board notes with appreciation that Africa Harvest continues to receive recognition for its work in Africa and internationally; during the year, the Foundation strengthened its relationship with the Government of Kenya. In June, the CEO, Dr. Florence Wambugu, was honored with a doctorate degree from the University of Bath, her former alma mater, in recognition of her institution’s achievements in the field of science in Africa. She also participated at the 2009 Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings in Trinidad and Tobago. Africa Harvest remains unwavering in its vision of an Africa free from poverty, hunger and malnutrition. During 2009, the Foundation continued with technology deployment applying the whole value chain approach—to the Tissue Culture banana and sorghum projects—to help the poor in Africa achieve food security, economic well being and sustainable rural development. The Board continued to hold management responsible in achieving the vision through innovative-driven strategies. I am glad to report that the Board kept its tradition of holding three meetings annually and continued to ensure that on matters of governance, finance and audit and evaluation of overall performance, Africa Harvest maintains international standards. We appreciate the support of the CEO, Management and Staff, without whom, the achievements made in 2009 would not have been made. 3
Message from the CEO, Dr Florence Wambugu
During the year under review, Africa Harvest made significant progress by remaining focused on its vision and mission. Our response to the effects of the global food crisis that made headlines the previous year was to reach out to more farmers while strengthening our relationship with the existing and new development partners. Guided by our mantra that “poverty is not a statistic, it’s a person I know,” Africa Harvest reached even more farmers in 2009 than in the previous year! One of Africa Harvest’s flagship projects, the Tissue Culture Banana Project in Kenya received further support from the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA); it achieved and exceeded the set milestones. Africa Harvest, in collaboration with Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI), facilitated the formation of the National Banana Association (NBA), which is a farmer-led initiative that promotes the interests of small- and large-scale banana-growing farmers, processors and marketers nationwide. During the period under review, Africa Harvest added three projects to its portfolio. In the light of climatic changes, sorghum is gaining prominence because it is a drought-tolerant crop that does well in arid and semi-arid areas. At the same time, recent trends in commercial brewing in Africa point to sorghum as barley production becomes more expensive and harder to source. Realizing an opportunity for food security intervention and commercialization of sorghum production with a market-pull strategy; Africa Harvest forged a partnership with East Africa Malting Ltd (EAML), a subsidiary of East Africa Breweries Limited (EABL), and spearheaded research and production of Gadam sorghum grain with smallholder farmer in the semi-arid Eastern province of Kenya Dr Florence Wambugu with Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, during a farm visit in Mwingi District, Eastern Province.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Dr Wambugu takes a short class on what a healthy sorghum head should look like, while Hon. Stephen Kalonzo, the Vice President of the Republic of Kenya, and Dr Rose Njeru, Director Technology Deployment and Capacity Building, Africa Harvest, pay close attention.
The McLaughlin Rotman Center in Canada funded Africa Harvest to design and pilot-test public engagement strategy for the introduction of nutritionally enhanced sorghum in low- and middle-income countries to counter micronutrient deficiencies in Kenya. The project identified stakeholders in sorghum value chains and developed a public awareness strategy, based on identified needs and gaps. Lessons learnt from the model have been documented so that they can be customized and replicated in other communities and countries. Africa Harvest was sub-contracted by the Biotechnology Resource Network (BRN) to handle some Communication and Issues Management (IM) aspects of the Grand Challenge 9. This involved developing IM protocol for each project, messaging and support materials for each project. Africa Harvest was also to provide crisis IM coordination when needed. The project will be completed in 2010. Africa Harvest was also contracted by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) to carry out a study on TC cassava and sweet potato in the region. The Croplife Project expanded its scope to Uganda and Burkina Faso due to the good achieved in the past while research on the Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS)—which is being undertaken by a consortium of research institutions—continued to gain mileage as more technology breakthroughs were reported. The former board chairman of Africa Harvest, Dr Kanayo Nwanze, who resigned upon his election as the President of International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), left a strong foundation for future growth of organization guided by the Africa Harvest Board of Directors. The CEO, Management and Staff are grateful to the Acting Board Chairman, Mr. Joseph Kibe, and the entire Board for their leadership during the year under review. We appreciate their diligence and faithfulness in ensuring that Africa Harvest remains true to its vision of an Africa free of poverty, hunger and malnutrition! Message from the CEO
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Technical Program
“The goal of ABS is to improve the nutritional profile of sorghum, through the synergy of science and biotechnology to meet the needs of more than 300 million people who have made sorghum their staple food crop�.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Africa Biofortified Sorghum Project (ABS) More than half a billion people around the world rely on sorghum as a dietary staple. Sorghum is a unique crop, which grows in hot and dry environments. Its drought- and heat-tolerant nature makes sorghum an important food crop in the arid and semi-arid areas of Africa, where irrigation is neither accessible nor affordable. However, sorghum lacks essential nutrients, such as vitamins, iron, zinc and lysine and is also not easily digestible. To counteract those inadequacies, an African-initiated and led consortium was established to develop a nutritionally enhanced sorghum that would contribute to food security and help fight malnutrition in Africa. The Africa Biofortified Sorghum (ABS) Project Consortium, led by Africa Harvest, seeks to develop a more nutritious and easily digestible sorghum that contains increased levels of essential amino acids, especially lysine, increased levels of Vitamins A, and more available iron and zinc. “The ABS has the potential to improve the nutrition of 300 million people who use sorghum as a staple or supplement food”, says the ABS project coordinator, Dr. Florence Wambugu, the CEO of Africa Harvest. Dr Silas Obukosia, Director, Regulatory Affairs
The ABS Project falls under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges for Global Health Projects. It seeks to create a full range of optimal, bioavailable nutrients in a single, staple plant species. The four grants cover: • Bio-Cassava Plus: Nutrition, Health, and Sustainable Development • Banana 2: Optimized Bioavailable Micronutrients • Golden Rice: High proVit A, Enhanced Fe and Zn Bioavailability, and • Africa Biofortified Sorghum: Nutritionally En hanced Sorghum for the Arid and Semi-Arid Tropical Areas of Africa The ABS consortium comprises expert partners skilled in technology development, product development and management, and includes organizations that could create an enabling environment in Africa for the use of ABS. See table for a list of ABS consortium members. Technical Program
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ABS Consortium Members Technology Development
Pioneer/DuPont, USA University of California (UC) Berkeley, USA Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), South Africa
Product Development
International Crops Research Institute for the Semi- Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), India Agriculture Research Centre, South Africa University of Pretoria, South Africa Kenya Agriculture Research Institute (KARI), Kenya Institut de l'Environnement et de Recherches Agricoles, (INERA), Burkina Faso
Management, biosafety and regulatory, communication and capacity building
Africa Harvest, Kenya African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF), Kenya CORAF, Senegal National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), Nigeria
During the year under review, a product in the form of golden sorghum with nutritional attributes namely enhanced Zinc and Iron including Vitamin A was realized. In addition protein digestibility was improved considerably.
ABS target traits 1. Protein digestibility: Is reduced 20–30% by cooking. Protein is essential for humans at all ages.
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Goal: No protein digestibility decrease resulting from cooking compared with non-transgenic sorghum
2. Iron: Essential for maternal and fetal health, learning, and productivity. Over 60% of the world’s 6 billion people are iron deficient.
Goal: 20% increase in iron bioavailability
Why sorghum improvement?
What are the strategic objectives of ABS?
•
Fifth most important grain for food use
•
•
Center of origin in Ethiopia and Sudan
Develop more nutritious and easily digestible sorghum
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Primary cereal in arid and semi-arid geographies
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Technology transfer from USA to Africa
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Human and infrastructure capacity building
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“Drought-tolerant maize”
•
•
Staple food for 300 million people in Africa
Public/private networking in GM technology by several institutions in Africa and USA
•
Grown as a staple food in many African countries
•
Support biosafety and regulatory policy development
•
Public acceptance of GM crops needed in Africa
Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
3. Zinc: Promotes growth. Helps prevent diarrhea and infections. Over 30% of the world’s 6 billion people are zinc deficient.
Goal: 20% increase of zinc bioavailability
4. Vitamin A: Vital for proper vision development and overall health. The initial stages of the program were challenging,“But undeterred,” says the Director of Technical Program, Dr. Silas Obukosia, “the scientists moved on and the transformation team at Pioneer and CSIR were able to improve the efficiency initially from as low as 0.1 per cent to more than 10 per cent and, in addition, to reduce the average time taken to recover transgenic plantlets from 10–12 months to 4–5 months.” Many other organizations, including KARI, partner with Africa Harvest in this effort. At KARI, Dr. Joel Mutisya, a plant molecular biologist, is spearheading the research. He has been working on ABS since 2006 and is one of the pioneers to implement the project in Kenya.
Government of Kenya issues ABS permit The year under review marked the turning point in ABS, when in May 2009 the Government of Kenya finally issued a permit to KARI to import the first Genetically Modified (GM) ABS seeds into Africa to allow the organization to conduct biosafety level 11 greenhouse research. In July of the same year, KARI imported the first seeds and started evaluating them to determine the stability of the transgenic traits. Subsequently they grew ABS seeds in the greenhouse at KARI, National Agricultural Research Laboratories (NARL) in Nairobi.
ABS plants at the KARI Biosafety level II Greenhouse in Kenya
included improvement of protein quality and quantity, digestibility and also a reduction of the phytate (which results in elevated zinc and iron) were shown to be stable up to the third generation. One of the objectives of the project is to ultimately transfer the ABS trait into the local sorghum varieties preferred by farmers. To achieve this, the germplasm of five popular African varieties were identified and forwarded to Pioneer and the other consortium Green sorghum (left) and golden sorghum (right)
The next step was to transfer the traits from the transgenic variety TX 430 into the local varieties and to evaluate the product. The ABS traits, which Technical Program
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ABS Management The ABS project research is being conducted in Kenya, South Africa and Burkina Faso. “Last year we decided to fast track our partnership with Nigeria in order to effectively support (the) ABS project in that country,” says Mr. Njuguna. He notes: “We went full-scale with Nigeria, visited the country and carried out due diligence with partner organizations.”
Dr Mutisya of KARI explains the process of containment of seeds while Dominic Nzeve, greenhouse manager, Marc Albertsen of Pioneer Hybrid International, and Ken Mburu of Africa Harvest listen, at a greenhouse containment unit at KARI-NARL.
partners involved in developing the technology, for introgression of the ABS traits. The introgression of the ABS traits into the identified germplasms is currently taking place at Pioneer and also at KARI, where ABS traits are being backcrossed to Macia, Tegemeo, Malisor, Sima and KARI Mtama 1. “The project aims at backcrossing to maintain the integrity of the local varieties while at the same time maintaining newly introduced genetic traits. Since then we have successfully conducted the first cycle from planting to harvest and gone ahead to plant the second cycle using seeds harvested from the first cycle,” says Dr. Mutisya. The third cycle was growing in the greenhouse at the time this article was being written. The final stages of preparations are on for confined field trials on land that has been donated by KARI at Kiboko along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway, where the studies can be conducted in a stable environment to evaluate performance. An application to be 10
Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
allowed to carry out the field trials has already been submitted to the Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC), seeking a permit to grow the ABS under confined conditions. “In (the) greenhouse experimentation of ABS, we have ensured absolute containment through physical and biological containment,” says Dr. Mutisya noting that after innumerable trials at Kiboko, and generation of adequate food and environmental safety data, the best seeds will be selected for deregulation and supplied to farmers for growing. The on-going research will ensure that when farmers replant the harvested seeds, they will get a yield with the same traits. However, Dr. Obukosia says that the trials at Kiboko are estimated to take five years, from where they will move to the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services (KEPHIS) for another three years before the regulation process. The speed at which ABS is deregulated after fulfilling the food and environmental
Information-sharing workshop for participants from Burkina Faso, Kenya regulators, and Africa Harvest staff at Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
Field trip for regulators from Burkina Faso and Kenya, and Africa Harvest staff at Saria, Burkina Faso.
safety requirements will determine the rate at which the new varieties reach the farmer.
Dr. Mutisya attributes the gains so far achieved in the project to support from the government even though the project has faced some challenges. He says, “We are where we are now because of the support we have received from the government in researching in Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), especially in the passage of the Biosafety Bill into Act.�
It is imperative that the traits are not lost after successive generation as this would mean that once the product is deployed to the farmers, they may end up not reaping the benefits after several years of cultivation. (So far six ABS field trials have been successfully conducted in the United States.) Achievements of ABS
1. Identified, evaluated, and verified the science, technologies, and strategies that can be leveraged for the project. 2. Developed critical transformation technology to overcome the bottleneck to the application of biotechnology in sorghum, that is, a 2-fold increase in high throughput sorghum transformation rate. 3. Generated scientific data and established a solid biosafety foundation to support ABS product development. 4. Transferred critical technology and IP, and started building capacity in ABS target African countries. Initiated establishment of cross-country networks and collaborations for research and product development. 5. Established a roadmap for ABS product development and deployment. 6. Grew GMO sorghum in Confined Greenhouse Trials in Africa and initiated approval for conducting confined field trials in Africa.
Technical Program
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Technology Deployment Program
Farmers taking a banana bunch for weighing at the community collection center
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
The Africa Harvest Technology Deployment Program is involved in the deployment of technologies focusing on sustainable food security, income generation and rehabilitation of the environment. Implementation looks at the whole value chain, analysis of skill gaps for various actors and addressing the identified needs. Dissemination of technology among smallscale farmers is a long-drawn process, and its success to a great extent depends on community engagement. According to Dr. Rose Njeru, Director Technology Deployment, it is critical for technology implementers to study a community and learn how to engage its members so that all key stakeholders are involved and there is community participation right from the on set.
Farmer group mobilization, formation, training and governance: cutting across all projects Africa has approximately 33 million small farms, representing 80 % of all farms in Africa. Twothirds of all farms are below 2 hectares and 90 % of them below 10 hectares. Most small farmers practice “low-resource” agriculture, which primarily uses local resources, and may also make modest use of external inputs. However, when it comes
Dr Rose Njeru, Director Technology Deployment, Africa Harvest (2nd from the right), Mr Lawrence Maina, Agriculture manager, East Africa Malting Limited (3rd from right), Mr David Kimani, sorghum field team coordinator, Africa Harvest, and a sorghum farmer in Mbeere (extreme left and right respectively) inspect the quality of sorghum grain with respect to EAML specifications.
to accessing new agricultural technologies and marketing their produce, these farmers are placed in a disadvantageous position on several fronts. One of them is that they are scattered over large geographical areas and their voices can hardly be heard because as individual farmers their yields are quite low, which also explains why brokers take advantage of them. It is in the light of this that the Africa Harvest community engagement model entails one important component, whcih is mobilization of small-scale farmers into farmer groups (a group normally comprising about 30–50 farmers). Cohesive farmer groups have several advantages, which include reducing the transaction cost; promoting joint learning and sharing; encouraging training; and joint marketing, since sufficient bulk
“What we need to be rethinking is how to turn political will into profits for Africa’s agriculture sector, 95 per cent of which is smallholder farming” Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, President (IFAD) Technology Deployment Program
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of produce is assured. Additionally, they become an avenue for other development initiatives. At the same time, legal recognition and backing empower the farmers to have a voice in developmental issues. However, Africa Harvest’s experience shows that forming functional farmer groups takes wellthought through strategies. One of the initial critical components in the formation of a farmer group is identification of gatekeepers like chiefs, district officers, headmen, opinion leaders and Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) extension officers, who are decision-makers and respected in their communities. They act as community spokespersons and as credible sources of information. Through sensitization workshops, Africa Harvest creates awareness of new technologies or products; it also gives the field officers the opportunity to understand the community’s perception of the technology or crop being introduced. Equipped with the right messages, the leaders, in conjunction with Africa Harvest, mobilize the farmers and encourage them to form groups within their localities. However, farmer mobilization and formation has its own dynamics
and needs to be supported by training. Formation of a group makes training mandatory, and covers group dynamics and governance, book-keeping, good agronomy practices, harvesting and post-harvesting skills and marketing.
Why group dynamics training? To become a cohesive unit, the members need to understand group dynamics. Lack of such awareness may result in misunderstanding, leading to dysfunctional groups. The following topics are covered in group dynamics training: what is a group? stages of group formation; group behavior, election processes; and book keeping amongst other issues. Knowing the importance of farmer groups, Africa Harvest facilitates and ensures good governance within the groups. Every farmer group has strong by-laws that are enforced and a constitution to help determine the group’s objectives, fees, registration, and governance controls. Africa Harvest goes a step further to facilitate the farmer group’s registration with the Government of Kenya’s Ministry of Culture and Social Services. To strengthen governance and democratic functioning, farmers elect an autonomous chairman, secretary and treasurer. These are essential structures because, once registered with the Ministry of Social Services, it gives them access to credit facilities and other social benefits Local communities hold the opinion of administrators, and more so of chiefs, in high esteem. This has proved to be a great influencing factor in the adoption of various projects by the communities. Barazas are the most trusted form of information dissemination. Meetings at such venues are taken more seriously, due to the respect accorded to the administration. There are a larger numbers of farmers at such venues where acknowledged opinion leaders are present.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
in the future. The groups become entities for development.
Importance of working with small-scale farmer groups Research has shown that smallscale farmer groups increase public sector investment in research and extension services, which assists them in overcoming high-marketing costs, thus enabling them to harness their market potential as a group. It further reduces production costs to make food affordable to the consumer and profitable for the farmer, and ensures that cultivation methods are environmentally and socially sustainable even when doubling agricultural production. It also facilitates in integrating local and traditional knowledge with formal knowledge in a faster way, thus enabling sustainable agriculture in the region as small-scale farmers take the lead and cooperate on many vital issues for the region. As evidenced by the Africa Harvest Model, farmer groups provide an opportunity for farmers to exchange ideas with each other, and they positively influence other locals to take up farming.
Technology Deployment Program
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Tissue Culture Banana Project
Jane Nderitu, a program assistant, hugs a bunch of TC bananas in appreciation of the impact of the TC Banana Project, which has expanded to the whole of Eastern and Central Province.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Scaling out the benefits of TC banana technology in Kenya through the whole value chain model
production of over 126,000 tonnes of bananas in the last 6 years, earning the farmers over Kshs. 26 billion ($ 325,000) in the same period.
In the 1990’s, the banana industry in Kenya recorded a 46% decline in production due to pests and diseases, poor agronomic practices and unavailability of disease-free planting materials. Prior to the mid1990s the estimated 250,000 small-scale banana farmers in Kenya had never heard of TC bananas, and relied on sword suckers sourced from their neighbors or their own farms to establish orchards. However, following the decline of banana production, KARI in conjunction with other players like Africa Harvest and ISAAA, initiated the introduction and dissemination of the tissue culture (TC) banana in the country—a new technology propagating clean planting material in a bid to provide farmers with clean, disease- and insect-free planting material to re-establish their banana orchards. It was recognized that the TC banana technology held the promise of transforming bananas into not only a reliable household food security crop but also a major commercial option for cash-strapped smallholder farmers. TC banana technology was not just new planting material but a complete package, indicating a shift from low inputlow output banana production to a highly profitable and remunerative production paradigm.
In the year under review, through AGRA funding, Africa Harvest entered Phase III of the TC banana project. The overall goal was to scale out the benefits of the TC banana through improved production efficiency of high quality banana fruit to fetch competitive market prices. The optimized whole value chain model was used, which begins and ends with the market. The model has responded positively to the demands of the market place and has demonstrated efficiency in linking farmer production activities to market demands. The overall benefits for the TC banana players have includede higher prices for farmers, secured supply for market intermediaries, better quality bananas for consumers, access to new markets, and improved customer/supplier relationships.
Dissemination of new technologies requires sensitization workshops for farmers to understand the technology, which is followed by cohesive group formation leading to technology adoption. Below, Wangari Kiragu, a Program Officer, conducts training at a farmer-sensitization workshop.
In the initial phase the TC banana project targeted about 400 farmers in Maragua, Murang’a and Kirinyaga districts. However, from 2004, with support from Rockefeller Foundation, Dupont Pioneer and AGRA, Africa Harvest has promoted adoption of TC bananas cultivation among the small-scale farmers , which expanded to 30 districts in Central and Eastern provinces of Kenya. These projects have directly reached over 20,000 farmers, who have planted over 700,000 TC banana plantlets, with an estimated Tissue Culture Banana Project
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Elodius Wanjuki never imagined that she would earn an average of Kshs. 8,000 per month from the sale of TC bananas. In her late 40s, Wanjuki wonders why the new technology was not introduced earlier. With the earnings from her banana crop, she has been able to improve her dairy farming by building a modern zero-grazing unit and has even purchased an additional freshian cow. Elodius Wanjuki, who lives in interior Embu West District, Eastern Province, commends Nicholas Mutune, Africa Harvest field officer, for traveling to the interiors to build the capacity of farmers and linking them to the markets. During 2009–2010, Elodius, a mother of five, increased her TC banana orchard by 100 plantlets. Besides TC banana farming on her five-acre farm, she also grows beans, maize and yellow passion fruit and has now diversified into fish farming. Her earnings go towards paying the school and college fees for her children; and she has even repaid a loan she had accessed from a microfinance institution! Below left: One of the major challenges that small-scale farmers face is accessing new technologies like TC banana plantlets. In 2009, Africa Harvest facilitated entrepreneurs capacity building workshop where farmers who met the required criteria were trained on TC banana nursery establishment and management. After that they set up subsidized regional nurseries by accessing loans through Equity Bank. Here, Lydia Wainana from the Sabasaba farmer group does her practicum on seedlings space maximization as Paul Muchemi of Aberdare Technologies Limited, who was one of the facilitators, supervises her work.
Elodius with her group members in her banana farm during the training by Africa Harvest. With them is Africa Harvest’s field officer Nicholas Mutune (in a white shirt).
a) Providing desperately needed extension service at the grassroots’ level: Extension service is limited in Africa and hardly available to grassroot communities. Africa Harvest's extension service serves even the most remote, interior rural areas, where small-scale farmers can access training in 18
Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
new technologies like TC banana; they are facilitated to form well-governed farmer groups, which are trained in good agronomic practices, including postharvesting skills. Further, the farmers are linked to organized markets, where they can negotiate for reasonable prices.
b) The power of community radio station in technology adoption at the grassroots’ level In the early 1990s, the Kenya coffee sub-sector started collapsing, yielding diminishing returns. Small-holder farmers like Stella Mukonene, who depended on coffee as a cash crop, were adversely affected. As a single parent with four children, Stella could not afford to pay her children’s school fees leave alone cater to other household needs. During one of those moments of desperation, she listened to a radio program where an Africa Harvest field officer was talking about TC bananas and the whole value chain approach. Without any hesitation, Stella, who lives on a one-acre plot of land in Imenti Central, Eastern Province, contacted the field officer in charge of her area, Eugenio Kiogora. The officer provided her with critical information and helped her do a gross-margin analysis, which convinced Stella that her future lay in growing TC banana. She obtained credit from a microfinance institution to buy TC banana plantlets, manure, fertilizer, and the nematicide, and established a 120-sapling plantation using good agronomic practices. After 14 months, her first yield was ready for sale and she was linked to the neighboring Mugambone Horticulture group for collective marketing. She made her first sale in the year under review and has been selling her produce ever since (see Table 1). Table 1 reveals that her income per month has been steadily increasing and that the market is stable. From the TC banana income, Stella was able to invest in a sprayer, a new kitchen, rent four acres of land
to farm Irish potatoes, manage household expenses and even save. It is holistic cultivation, where even the waste is productive. The banana leaves are fed to her two cows, which provide manure for the orchard. Observing the financial security that has accrued from TC banana, the family is about to further expand their banana orchard. c) Farmer-to-farmer dissemination of technologies As farmers see the breakthroughs their brethren have achieved, they too are motivated to experiment. As they passed a TC banana collection center, the two farmers were amazed to see the Gatumbi Farmers SHG (from Runyenjes division) selling bananas that weighed over 50 kg per bunch. They approached the sellers, enquiring about the type of bananas, and, after a short discussion, settled for a field visit. In collaboration with the Africa Harvest field officer, the Gatumbi Farmers Group identified three prospective farms to be visited. While on the learning tour, the two farmers recruited additional people from the two geographical locations, finally the group totaling 24 members: 6 women and 18 men. “After that visit our attitude towards banana as a low value crop changed; it was a mind-changing experience as we saw the development that the Gatumbi group farmers had achieved through production of TC bananas!” exclaims one of the farmers from Manyatta. Having been challenged by their counterparts, the farmers invited the field officer to train and facilitate them in the adoption of new technology.
Unique Whole Value Chain Approach
Awareness creation & Baseline Surveys
Seedling Availability & Affordability
Growing & farm Management
Post-Harvest Handling & value adding
Marketing, entrepreneurship & consumer acceptance
Tissue Culture Banana Project
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Table 1: Stella’s earnings through bananas Number of bunches delivered
Weight in Kg
Price /Kg
Amount earned in Ksh
9th Dec 2009
5
156
13
2028
23rd Dec 2009
5
131
13
1703
20th Jan 2010
17
381
13
4953
2nd Feb 2010
6
147
13
1911
17th Feb 2010
21
549
13
7139
3rd Mar 2010
13
388
14
5432
17th Mar 2010
5
137
14
1918
31st Mar 2010
30
820
14
11480
102
2709
13.50 Ksh/kg
36, 564 ($ 460)
Date of the market
Total
NB. Some of the bunches were used for home.-consumption
The Gatumbi SHG also visited the St Benedict Secondary School to see how the school had harnessed roof water. Farmer exchange visits and study tours: Exchange visits allow farmers to share their knowledge and Eugenio Kiogora, Africa Harvest field officer (left) and TC banana farmer Stella Mukonene (right), with her children. With the adoption of the new technique, her children are assured of a better life in terms of food security and she earns enough income to meet other farming needs.
experiences. The study tours allow the group to interact with other farmers and expose the members to farming technologies, providing them with additional sources of knowledge and information according Dr. Rose Njeru, the Director of Technology Deployment at Africa Harvest. Farmer innovators appreciate exchange and study visits as ways of gaining new experiences, knowledge and skills. Farmer-to-farmer communication is more effective when visitors and hosts are well prepared, and both groups review the usefulness of the activity and deliberate on the lessons learned.
What are the benefits of TC banana?
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
•
Rapid multiplication of plantlets
•
Plantlets are free from pests and diseases
•
Faster growth
•
Uniformity in growth
•
High yielding
Status of banana •
Banana production in Kenya currently stands at an estimated 1.7 million metric tons, with a value of Ksh. 24 billion.
•
Recent research in priority setting for horticultural crops ranked banana as the most important crop amongst the fruit crops in Kenya.
•
In sub-Sahara Africa, banana provides more than 25% of the carbohydrates and 10% of the calorie intake for approximately 70 million people in the region.
•
Banana is a major fruit crop for both subsistence and commercial farming.
•
Bananas are quickly gaining reputation as “the wonder fruit” of the world.
D) TC banana growing gains popularity A group of farmers are gathered in a corner of a church compound, where they have set up a collection center for their bananas. They moved here recently from their regular venue near Meru town to escape the menace of donkeys that were eating their produce. Among the group are a couple of young men strong enough to lift the bananas to weigh and stack them in readiness for loading on to a truck that will be arriving later in the day. Ponziano Kimemba is the leader of the group. An exchange visit has completely revolutionized the group members’ perception of banana cultivation. Today Mr. Kimemba, who led the 38 farmers during the exchange visit, speaks with great commitment about what the group sees as a very bright future in growing TC bananas. “Before we went for an exchange visit, we were growing bananas the traditional way, but today all that has changed,” says Mr. Kimemba, adding: “We learnt about desuckering, proper harvesting and generally about
Banana is a water-thirsty crop and Africa Harvest field officers explain water harvesting management techniques to farmers and others who want to use the technology. The harvested water is used for dual purposes. St. Benedict School, in Eastern province, also does fish farming. Above, the Equity Bank branch managers visit the school after discussing with Africa Harvest on how farmers can access better credit packages from the bank.
proper management of orchards.” Mr. Kimemba says many people in the area are now planting TC bananas and uprooting coffee “because of the big disparities in earnings between the two crops in terms of inputs and labor.” In the first three months of 2010, the farmers planting TC had already harvested three times, with some of them earning as much as Ksh 24, 000. Mr. Kimemba is full of praise for the Africa Harvest field team, applauding them for their skills in disseminating information about the management of banana orchards. You also have others like the Rubate SHG located in Rubate, Magumoni division in Meru South district. This group planted TC bananas along with several other crops. When a dry spell set in, most crops were devastated; the lone survivor was the TC banana. It prompted the group members to visit other banana cultivators to hear their success stories. Through the Africa Harvest field officer, Kiogora, the group organized a mini-tour to visit farmers in Ntharene in Meru Central, who had planted the Tissue Culture Banana Project
21
Above: The Gatumbi SHG visiting St. Benedict Secondary School to see how the school had harnessed roof water. Here, the group members observe an inlet pipe from the school.
Above: Water conservation is crucial in agriculture as it serves as an extra source of water for irrigation and as a site where fish can be reared.
Gatumbi SHG outside a classroom where a small water reservoir has been set up by harvesting water from the roof. It supplies water to a tap where students can wash their hands.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Farmers who bulk their banana produce at a collection center, use different mode of transport to deliver their bananas to the collection centers. Some use wheelbarrows, others donkeys or bicycles, or even their own backs or any other available transport.
crop earlier in comparison to their late planting. The group chairman, Alfred Mirit, identified the farm to visit in Meru Central. Fourteen farmers took part in this tour, where they saw for themselves the benefits of cultivating bananas and learnt how important marketing, good agronomic practices, and eventually diversification was to increase income. They saw at first-hand the benefits of adopting the new technology and that bananas had a ready market. Some of the farmers had even earned a surplus income to make other investments! Upon their return, the farmers increased the acreage under banana cultivation significantly and improved their orchard management techniques.
In the fight against poverty and ensuring that all communities become food secure, Africa Harvest extends its wings outside its funded area of operation from time to time. Above, the Oloshaiki Entiak SHG in Narok, Rift Valley, is being trained on TC banana technology using posters. Jane Ndiritu, Africa harvest Assistant Program Officer showing farmers how to plant TC banana plantlets
Using a maasai translator, Jane continues to train the community
Tissue Culture Banana Project
23
Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
Dominic Mureithi with his wife Elizabeth and their children.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
a. Ngariama Anglican church of Kenya Located in Gichugu Division, Kirinyaga district, the church, which has a membership of 350, also runs a dispensary; in fact it is the only one of its kind within a 10 km radius! Just a couple of years ago, the church was struggling to raise funds to pay the staff, cover general maintenance and stock up the dispensary. To resolve the situation, a unique solution was put forward by four of the church elders from a neighboring TC banana group called Ngabros SHG. They proposed that the church adopt TC banana farming as an income-generating venture to help run the dispensary and other church activities. “We realized that from our personal experience of growing TC bananas, the church was going to make some extra money, to cater to salary for the staff, maintenance and stock(s) in the dispensary, with the much-needed drugs� says Francis Kaboro, one of the elders who had successfully adopted the technology on his farm. As a result, the church planted 590 TC banana plantlets in its compound/farm in the year under review. A recently established TC banana plantation at ACK Ngariama Church compound in Kirinyaga district. The church has constructed a polytechnic college and diversified to inter-crop bananas with beans (see bottom left) to optimize returns.
A signboard used to publicise the Ngariama parish and dispensary, which will soon be stocked with the much-needed drugs after the sales of TC bananas.
Chairman of the Ngariama parish and dispensary that has adopted TC banana technology to boost its budget.
District church leaders backing TC technology and AH staff on a visit to the orchard.
Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
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The Africa Harvest field officer continues to offer technical back-up to supplement the support given by the farmer trainer from the Ngabros group, who is a church elder. The church was able to not only improve its financial situation but has even erected infrastructure to house a polytechnic. The polytechnic will be used to train youth in the community on courses like dressmaking, masonry, carpentry, hairdressing and plumbing.
Benefits Reaped By the Institution from the TC banana project Thus, for the church, TC bananas offered a multipronged solution: food for the workers and the community who attend church; surpluses could be sold to raise funds to pay church workers; stocks could be bought for the dispensary; funds raised to complete and equip the polytechnic; and, finally, part of the income could be ploughed back to create awareness about this beneficial technology among the church congregation.
Saint Benedict Secondary School: setting the pace for other institutions Saint Benedict Secondary School is located in Nembure division in Embu West district. It was established as an initiative of the local community, to absorb students from primary schools in Kithimu who were finding it difficult to secure a place in secondary school boarding due to their inability to pay the relatively high fees. Currently, the school has 154 students (84 boys and 70 girls) under the supervision of nine teachers. The school is located in a dry area where farmers depend on rain-fed agriculture and focus on a limited number of crops, which include maize, beans, sorghum and cowpeas. Consequently, the
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
local community experiences food insecurity during a significant period of the year, and poverty is also high. It was but natural that the remittance of fees to the school was poor, leaving it with little funds to invest in infrastructure, which was rudimentary, with the computer and science laboratories being poorly equipped and the water supply erratic. The situation was further compounded by the high incidence of HIV in the division, leading to a large numbers of orphans in the school: 5% of the students were orphans while a further 10% had only one surviving parent. To address the problem of poor remittances of school fees and also support the school feeding program, the school ventured into growing passion fruit. However, the project failed after the school had invested over Ksh 70,000. The Africa Harvest field officer, Nicholas Mutune, approached the school principal, Mr. Simon Njagi, and explained the benefits of growing TC banana. The principal had witnessed the impact of TC banana technology in the Eastern Province and, after an in-depth discussion with Africa Harvest, he shared the proposal to grow TC banana with the school board; the management endorsed the move. Through its whole value chain approach, Africa Harvest introduced TC banana, ensuring easy access of planting materials, providing technical support on plantation management, post-harvest handling and linking the institutions to the markets. The TC banana project was born with a plantation consisting of 250 plantlets, which later increased to 400 plantlets. However, later, a dry spell hit the land, and the TC banana being a water-thirsty crop, the plantation was negatively affected. But the school was unfazed and determined to succeed. It sought technical solutions from Africa Harvest, and a home-grown and cost effective solution was identified, which focused on using local labor to construct a water pan that would also serve as a reservoir for the water
harnessed from the rooftop of the school building. To avoid seepage, the pan was lined with Ultra Violet-treated greenhouse polythene paper. During the rainy season, the water pan was usually full and the reservoir held sufficient water to meet the needs of the school until the next rainy season. The school has now established three more such pans to support other farming activities. They were shown how to harvest water from the roofs of the school buildings and how to store water in a low cost water pans. For optimum returns from the water reservoir (in the water pan), Africa Harvest encouraged the school to diversify into fish farming.
Benefits reaped by the institution from the TC banana project The fruits of the hard work are now evident as the school prides itself in having one of the best plantations in the district that is also linked to profitable markets. • The fruits are now part of the students’ menu, and proceeds from the sale of surplus bananas supports the school feeding program; • The school plantation is now a training site for other schools which want to adopt the technology, including schools like St Joseph M’tetu, Kavutiri Secondary School, and Kamuthatha Boarding School; • The school receives visitors who want to learn about TC banana technology and water harvesting; in the year under review, this included 40 farmers and Ministry of Agriculture staff from Marakwet district, Rift Valley Province; • It is also a point of reference for farming as a business for students and the local community in general;
TC bananas being weighed before they are taken to the market for sale. The profit from the sale of bananas offers an extra source of income, which enables purchase of other necessities and expansion of the existing project.
• This is an eight-year investment and the school plans to use the income from TC banana growing for the purchase of land and to improve the school infrastructure. Diversification into aquaculture (fish farming): The school further diversified, with support from Africa Harvest, into pisciculture. The NGO also linked them to a local farmer who was doing fish farming. Fingerlings/baby fish were purchased from Mr. Dominic Mureithi, a local farmer from Gatumbi SHG in Runyenje division, Embu East. At the time of the last visit, the school had 250 Tilapia which was to be sold in the readily available local market at Ksh 200 shillings per kilogram live weight.
Linking farmers to markets It is banana market day in Meru. Mr. Dominic Mureithi, an official of the local farmers’ group, has gone to the collection center to help in weighing the bunches. His ever-smiling wife, Elizabeth, welcomes Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
27
Left to right: The TC banana plantation at St Benedicts School at fruiting stage. Africa Harvest staff demonstrates post-harvest Tissue culture banana orchard at S Benedicts school at fruiting stage, Africa Harvest staff demonstrates post harvest handling of handling of banana bunches. A school worker weighing harvested fruits to determine the cost of the bunches.
banana bunch and school worker weighing harvested fruits to determine the cost of the bunches (Left to Right)
the visitors as she frantically makes a call to her husband to rush home. Soon Mr. Mureithi arrives and one can tell that this is a very happy couple. Mureithi is a retired local government employee, while Elizabeth, who also calls herself Mama Ndizi, is a retired nurse. So how did this couple, who have since become celebrities of some sort, get involved in planting TC bananas? Mr. Mureithi has the answer. Elizabeth was attending a local development meeting, when she heard about TC bananas. After some follow up, a meeting was set between her and Africa Harvest. “The team from Africa Harvest were very articulate and clear in their demonstration and since then (sic) my husband and I made up our mind to go for the TC banana and have never looked back,” says Elizabeth. To be doubly sure, before embarking on full-scale TC banana growing, the couple visited other successful farmers. They were impressed by the huge TC banana bunches in the orchard. Prior to that they used to grow the traditional banana variety, but the yield was never satisfactory. The couple started with 20 plants but today the farm has become a model plantation that
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
is the talk of the village. Mr. Mureithi is remembered for a record-setting banana bunch weighing 110 kg that he harvested from his plantation. It was so big that it was exhibited at the Nairobi Show in the year under review. Since then, Mr. Mureithi and his wife have become the most sought after farmers in the area because of their knowledge about TC bananas. “What is required is to take instructions given by the Africa Harvest field team very seriously…one needs to apply fertilizer when it is due, do the desuckering at the appropriate time and also ensure that the plants get enough water,” says Elizabeth as she points to a new plantation of 60 healthy banana seedlings that they planted in October 2009. Farmers from as far off places as Kisii over 500km away have been visiting the Mureithi’s to learn about how to manage a TC banana orchard. If the couple is not receiving farmers in their homestead, they are busy disseminating information through TC banana demonstrations during church meetings or field days within their locality. Prior to the author’s visit they had hosted 11 church leaders who were eager to learn about the increasingly popular TC banana. Their
Mureithi with his sons
Dominic Muriethi shows off a large bunch of bananas.
banana-growing exploits have made them village heroes. Their phones ring constantly, with people calling in with questions about TC banana cultivation or asking for appointments. When not tending to their crop, the Mureithis have grade cattle and dairy goats to look after. They also sell firewood from trees grown in their family woodlot.
Above and below: Before the bananas are taken to the market, they are weighed so that the farmers know how much they have produced that season, and how much profit they have made compared with other seasons.
Farmer-led extension in rural development through training of trainers Realizing the crucial role of extension services for smallholders farmers in Africa, Africa Harvest identifies and selects a farmer from every region for Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
29
Once the banana bunches have been weighed, they are bulked at the collection center, where the buyers pick them up and take the produce to the market.
training. Each individual is given one-week training and prepared for the Training of Trainers (TOT) to offer extension services to other farmers in collaboration with Africa Harvest field officers. Three years after retiring from the military, Gideon Gitonga still exudes the confidence of a disciplined soldier. He struts across his well-maintained compound to meet his guests and greets them warmly. From his demeanor, Gitonga, who retired at Major Gitonga with members of his farmer group on his banana plantation. With him is Euginio Kiogora, Africa Harvest’s field officer for Meru.
the rank of a major after serving for 30 years, is a happy man, obviously as a result of his hard work. His banana plantation is a sight to behold … neatly and artistically spaced plants as if they were soldiers on a parade! Gitonga is a model TC banana farmer in Mugambone village of Imenti Central constituency. He has followed the instructions given to him by Africa Harvest field officers to the letter and the results are evident. It is no wonder that he was identified and went through TOT and now he offers extension services to other farmers in the neighborhood. As a result many fellow farmers flock to his farm to learn about the best ways to manage a banana plantation. “I strictly carry out the instructions as given by the Africa Harvest field officers and you can see the results for yourself,” he says pointing to several mother plants heavily weighed down by huge, healthy bunches of bananas, all with their cigar ends removed and some ready for harvesting. Good plant husbandry has ensured that Gitonga’s bananas weigh an average of between 40 and 50 kg, but he says that he has on many occasions harvested bananas weighing more than 58 kg. Like others farmers with
30
Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
TC banana plantations, he harvests every two weeks and also benefits from a ready market. On his five-acre farm, which he bought when he was aged 25, in 1975, Gitonga has planted 400 banana plants. But, in order to maximize the use of his land, he also grows Tumbukiza Napier grass for his cattle, sorghum, yams and avocados. He has also planted 200 coffee plants, built a fishpond and set up a greenhouse from which he has just harvested almost 24 tones of tomatoes. He is also about to complete building a 26,000-gallon water tank, the water from which he intends to use for the plants in the greenhouse as well as the bananas during drought. Besides the cattle, he also keeps dairy goats, rabbits, geese and sheep. “Although my training was basically on TC banana growing, capacity building by Africa Harvest through field days, exchange visits and routine training has enabled me to diversify into other enterprises,” he says (“Farmer’s Voices”). Major Gitonga has started other income-generating programs like rabbits, which he proudly shows to Edmund Kwena, Africa Harvest consultant. Also in the picture is Phlip Wamahiu, Africa Harvest Tree Manager.
F. From Miraa to bananas In most parts of Meru and Embu, growing Miraa as a commercial crop has been a way of life for as long back as one can recall. The tender leaves are widely chewed in Kenya and even abroad, where they are exported. The drug produced by the tree causes mild intoxication and is also said to cause insomnia among the chewers. However, that notwithstanding, Miraa is associated with relative wealth, not so much for the hardworking farmers as the middlemen. So when the residents of Gatumbi village on the outskirts of Embu town woke up one day to find one of their own uprooting the Miraa trees on his 3 1/4 acre farm, to replace them with TC banana plants, they looked askance at him. But Mr. Dominic Mureithi was undeterred in his resolve. He had made up his mind that the time for Miraa farming was up because of poor prices, the labor-intensive cultivation that it required, high cost of insecticides and worse still, the crop’s negative social impact among the youth in the village, where many of them had dropped out of school to get into the Miraa business and were addicted to chewing. Mureithi’s family with Dr Wambugu and Dr Jenny Rooke of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the provincial agricultural officer
Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
31
“I did not wish to be counted among those who have contributed to the poor social standards in this village and that explains the decision I took to uproot the trees,” he says. Mr. Mureithi’s bold move has pushed him into the limelight for the right reasons. As the secretary of the Gatumbi SHG, which was revived in 2007 through the initiative of Africa Harvest and the Ministry of Agriculture, he shoulders management responsibilities for the group, which has 60 members. Pointing to his healthy TC banana plantation with 150 plants, Mureithi says that what excites him is not only the good returns that he gets from his TC banana farm, but also the crop’s ability to help feed the family, fight poverty and famine among the local communities. “TC banana farming technology is definitely going to transform my life,” says the father of three children. Their evidently good health is ample proof that he is meeting his parental obligations from the proceeds of his banana farming! He adds value to his banana business by ripening some of the Mureithi and his guests at his abandoned Miraa plantation. From left to right, field officer Nicholas Nutune, Dr Jenny Rooke, Dr Wambugu and Dr Njeru of Africa Harvest, Mureithi and his wife, and the Provincial Agricultural Officer.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
bunches, which the family consume while he sells the rest. Like all farmers on the TC banana project, his group is linked to a regular buyer, which assures him of a steady income. Besides being the secretary of his group, Mureithi is also a trained trainer through the strategic bulking center. This keeps him occupied most of the time as he either hosts groups, which included the Arimi group from Kyeni and Kairuri from Manyatta divisions among others, or he goes visiting prospective TC banana farmers. The high adoption of TC banana farming in the area is thanks to Mureithi’s efforts. His TC banana-farming exploits have inspired his father, who has joined the business by planting 50 plantlets. His brother was not to be left behind! He too has planted 45 plantlets and is expecting to increase the number by another 48 during the next rainy season. A neighbor has just completed digging the holes and is ready to plant after observing Mureithi’s success with this enterprise.
Mureithi (in red shirt) with Dr Wambugu, Africa Harvest CEO, and the field officer Nicholas Mutune (in a hat) at the collection center, where buyers purchase the local produce.
He is, however, not one to be content with banana farming alone. After his group visited the Ntharene farmer’s group in Meru in 2007, he learnt about pisciculture and immediately built a pond on his farm. He now regularly supplies fish to the local community, which earns him about Ksh 3,000 per month in addition to the Ksh 7,000 he earns from the sale of bananas. He is also planning to expand his irrigation system in order to cope with drought in future. “I can now feed my children through bananas!” says Lizz Wangari Lizz managed to double her income when she started selling her bananas collectively as part of a group compared to when she sold her produce individually and through the local brokers. Regular income has provided funds to purchase 100 more plantlets, bringing the total to 220 stools. “Farming tomatoes and french-beans was more labor intensive, involved expensive inputs and an
unreliable market but bananas have a guaranteed market and they are not as highly perishable”. Combined with dairy farming, her new occupation has given her greater economic security. Lizz smiles with contentment assured that her daughter will make it to college next year.
Tee Cee Banana Enterprises Ltd. One of Africa Harvest’s achievements has been to establish a full-fledged private company in Kenya called Tee Cee Banana Enterprises Ltd. (TCBEL). Five years after incorporation, the company has continued to be true to the founders’ vision of “enhancing food security and economic empowerment of farmers growing TC bananas by creating a superior value proposition in the market for a high return on shareholder investment.” It held its first Annual General Meeting in 2009, which was attended by 48 shareholders representing farmers, marketers and facilitators. Seven new directors were elected to constitute the board, with
Lizz Wangari and her children in her banana plantation; and, Lizz in her cowshed, which provides an extra source of income.
Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
33
four representing farmers’ interests. The confidence level among farmers remains high, and TCBEL will continue to provide a vehicle for enhanced economic livelihoods of the rural smallholder TC Banana farmers as well as for employment and wealth generation among the target communities. Replicating the model in other regions where bananas are grown, is seen as one way to re-structure banana marketing in Kenya while empowering farmers to drive the change. The company has since been selling bananas in various parts of Kenya without relying on brokers to ensure that farmers make a reasonable profit on their investments. It is already breaking even and is expected to make profits in 2010 and become a role model for other farm crops in the country. It is most encouraging that the company has achieved its growth target in a shorter period than the projected two years, reflecting the dedication of both Africa Harvest’s field team and the farmers. TC banana farmers in Kiambu, Thika, Murang’a, Kirinyaga, Embu, Kakamega and Meru areas have,
Shareholders representing the farmers, marketers and the facilitators who attended the TC Bel AGM, where various issues were discussed.
in TCBEL, a reliable market for their produce (green bananas), while schools, institutions and retail traders benefit from a dependable source of high quality ripe bananas. In 2009 alone, 134MT of green bananas were purchased from farmers—a figure that is set to rise with increased focus on diversification as a strategy for growth in 2010 and beyond.
Farmers bring their produce to the collection centers from where they are collected, while some farmers deliver them to TCBEL
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Social impact of TC banana in Kenya • At the family level, TC banana is an additional asset. • Home consumption of 30–50% of the fruit has resulted in increased food security at the household level. • Reduced malnutrition directly through home consumption and indirectly through accruing incomes, which enable diverse dietary purchases. • Greater economic empowerment of women. • General improvement in quality of life indicators through affordability of expenses such as school fees, better
housing, investment in radios, dairy cows, etc.
• Increased cellular phone usage due to higher discretionary income. • Reduced anti-social vices such as petty crimes. • Thousands of small-scale farmers who are food secure with surplus produce that generates income that can be reinvested with multiplier effects. • TC banana technology has led to partnership for a more equitable and sustainable future. • Transformed lives of both old and young creating entrepreneurship along the value chain. Kirinyaga and Murang’a North field officer Ken Macharia helping a farmer to load his harvest onto a truck for transport to the market for sale.
Boosting Budgets through Banana Farming
35
Trees for Energy Project
Mr Mwambogo shares with Dr Njeru, his experience in establishing a eucalyptus clonal nursery.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Kenya’s forest cover has dwindled to a mere 2% due to environmental degradation, caused by the felling of trees to burn charcoal, gather firewood/or for timber, while at the same time, human settlements like Mau Forest has affected forestry in the country. Additionally, natural factors such as soil erosion has exacerbated the situation. In such a scenario, it becomes critical to apply innovative measures to protect and increase Kenya's forest cover.
and promotional campaign materials for radio and television were developed. Additionally, the capacity of the Ministry of Energy field officers (Center managers), local communities, and extensionists on tree nursery management was enhanced; one field officer per district was recruited and their capacity built while targeted groups were trained on tree clonal technology, management, and marketing, pests and diseases and value addition.
The Trees for Energy Project (TEP) was being implemented by Africa Harvest in collaboration with key stakeholders on behalf of the Ministry of Energy, Government of Kenya. The Project seeks to increase the availability of basic energy in Kenya and has four objectives:
Using the whole value chain, local communities were mobilized to plant trees, and about 208 groups comprising both genders, and including the youth were formed. The groups have been registered with the ministry of social services and their skills on group dynamics, governance and various aspects of tree nursery establishment and silvi-culture were enhanced by conducting over 97 training sessions. Farmers participated in 11 exchange visits. Local communities were facilitated to access high-quality seeds and seedlings, and Africa Harvest purchased over 150 kg of high-quality seeds of 23 tree species (from Kenya Forestry Research Institute in Muguga), while seed species suited to specific sites were identified by local communities and AH with inputs from KEFRI. The 208 groups were trained on nursery management and provided with starter material, including tubes for raising seedlings. In 2009, the groups raised over 1.3 million seedlings, which were later planted.
• Growing trees for domestic use and wood fuel; • Power distribution poles for Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC); • Soil and water conservation of dams and river lines; • Investigating the potential of jatropha for the production of bio-fuel. By the time the Trees for Energy Project was wrapped up in 2009, at least 200 farmers groups had been constituted and provided with seeds and polythene tubing in which to establish seedlings. The farmers were able to establish tree seedling nurseries, and, within 18 months, three million seedlings had been raised. In realization of the four objectives, awareness creation was critical at every level and towards that end, posters and brochures were developed, contacts with local and opinion leaders, churches and other organized groups were established through one -to-one and barazas in target districts, local and regional workshops for field officers were also held
Farmer sees the future of the world in trees As the world grapples with climatic change, according to Mr. Rawson Mwambogo, a farmer in Bomani, Kikambala division of Kilifi district, only trees will save the situation. “The future of the world is in trees. We need to plant millions of them before the situation completely goes out of hand,” says Mr. Trees for Energy Project
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Executive summary on a study conducted on jatropha and other oil crops for bio-diesel production The development of the bio-diesel industry in Kenya has the potential to stimulate economic growth, improve the environment and reduce dependency on imported oil. However, the promotion of sustainable bio-diesel production requires that the appropriate feed stocks and most suitable areas for production are identified and a clear understanding of the actors along the value chain, existing capacity, sources of planting material and existing infrastructure is well understood. This study, focusing on the whole value chain, was conducted to investigate the potential of jatropha and functionally related plants for bio-diesel production in Kenya. Survey tools were developed and administered to nursery operators, farmers, processors, consumers and traders in Kajiado, Maragua, Tigania West, Kitui, Nyeri, Kibwezi, Migori, Busia, Kilifi, Malindi, Lamu and Kwale districts. The study was conducted between April and June 2009 and supplementary information was also gathered in January 2010. The main plants used for bio-diesel production in the surveyed districts were croton and jatropha and the latter was observed in all the districts surveyed, except in Nyeri. Croton plants were established from seedlings, while jatropha fields were established using seeds, seedlings and cuttings. The seeds were obtained locally except for 10% of growers who imported seeds. A total of 15 nurseries were surveyed and different levels of management practices were employed. Over 90% of the nurseries were not registered with the relevant government institutions and there was no regulation on the quality of the materials sold to growers. Production of jatropha was either as mono crop or intercrop but appropriate silviculture practices were not followed. About 28% of the jatropha fields were established in late 2008 and the plants had not reached maturity. In Kajiado district, the farmers had harvested seeds, but had limited market outlets for the seeds. Croton was grown as the main feed stock at the Help Self Help processing center (HSHC) in Nyeri district, and was grown as an intercrop as well as along farm boundaries. Seeds were also collected from Mount Kenya forest. The key challenges facing HSHC included limited human capacity, high cost of chemicals used in processing, high operating costs, shortage of raw materials (croton seed) during certain periods of the year and relying on the processing unit as the only sales outlet for the products. Cost benefit analysis for production of jatropha was determined using Internal Rate of Return (IRR and assuming 17% nominal market rate of interest) under three scenarios, namely pro-poor, advanced pro-poor and commercial production where jatropha is grown by smallholder farmers as a feedstock for bio-diesel production, for use in lighting in place of kerosene and on large scale for bio-diesel production respectively. Advanced pro-poor production of jatropha returned an IRR of 19% after 8 years of establishment with the most suitable areas of production being Kilifi, Kwale, Malindi, Lamu, Migori and Busia districts. Pro-poor production was unprofitable even after 20 years of establishment in all the districts surveyed, except in the coastal districts where an IRR of 18% was recorded at year 16 of establishment, under an intercrop scenario. Commercial production of jatropha for bio-fuel production, the IRR was 18% at 11 years after establishment with the coastal region showing more suitability than the Mount Kenya region. Jatropha production in Kitui and Kibwezi was uneconomical from an IRR point of view. The analysis revealed that jatropha production is a long-term venture. In the best-case scenario, break-even is only expected after about 8 years. However, the analysis confirmed that jatropha can have positive spin-offs when planted on a small scale. Nonetheless, especially with the coastal eco-system, commercial production is also viable. Croton should also be promoted for bio-diesel production in high-potential areas in Kenya, mainly because profitable processing is ongoing and the highest IRR (20%) is realized by the 15th year of planting croton. In addition, Croton is suitable for intercropping, is indigenous to East Africa and good-quality planting seeds are available from Kenya Forestry Research Institute.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Mwambogo, who cultivates a five-acre farm on which he raises clonal fast-growing eucalyptus seedlings for sale. He adds: “The problem in this country is that we are cutting down more trees than we are planting and what is planted will take a while to mature.� Mr. Rawson, a retired banker and NGO worker, was among the first 15 farmers who were trained by Africa Harvest as tree nursery entrepreneurs. A visit to his
farm confirms that the training has had an impact, judging by the way he manages his nursery. In addition, he benefited from a donation of 500 clonal eucalyptus seedlings, starter materials donated by Africa Harvest; he also purchased a similar number of plants and now they total 1,000! To ensure ample supply of irrigation water, Mr. Mwambogo took a loan from Kenya Rural Enterprise Progra (K-Rep). He used the money to sink a well for domestic water supply and irrigation; additionally, he bought a storage tank and got an electricity connection on his farm. He has also set up a screenhouse, in which he propagates the seedlings and building materials that were donated by Africa Harvest. The process of seedling propagation involves harvesting young tender shoots from mature plants, dipping them in a chemical (hormone) that promotes rooting, and then letting them stay in the screenhouse for 40 days. Rooted cuttings are then potted (the pots were donated by Africa Harvest) and transferred to another shed, where they stay for one week to allow
Above: Mr Mwambogo takes Dr Njeru on a tour of his tree seedling farm. Below: Mr Mwambogo showing Dr Njeru his water reservoir, which provides regular water supply to irrigate his seedlings.
Members of a Kaweru group loading wheelbarrows with tree seedlings for the expansion of their nurseries. They will either sell the seedlings or allow them to grow to complete maturity so that they can be sold as fuel or construction material.
Trees for Energy Project
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“Africa Harvest has empowered our group through training, encouragement and purchase of 700 seedlings, which were used in the rehabilitation of river Iraru, thereby changing our lives drastically,” says Mr Kiabati, the chairman of the group.
Community members of South Imenti rehabilitating riverbeds by planting trees, in order to reduce siltation of the river, and prolong the Mathanjwi river’s life line.
them to acclimatize to the new environment. Before the seedlings are ready to be sold, they are moved to yet another shed for hardening. To date, Mr. Mwambogo has produced over 5,000 seedlings and has been selling them at Ksh.15 each. By venturing into clonal technology, he has enabled people in the coastal province of Kenya easy access to these fast-growing eucalyptuses. Previously the seedlings were mainly available from Nairobi, which is 600 km away. He receives regular technical backup from the Africa Harvest Field officer. There are ready markets for the mature trees, especially KPLC, and the Rural Electrification Authority. Mr. Mwambogo
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
has started diversifying, and now grows other tree species such as casuarinas and indigenous varieties, including Paromacrobium coeruleum (mkamba mwamba), Afzeha quenzensis (mbabakofi) and Erythoropheleum quineese (mkelekel). He also grows coconuts, oranges, mangoes and pawpaws. He has also planted TC banana plants that he bought from a local farmer’s institute. His future plan is to dig a fishpond and to move other farming activities to his other piece of land measuring eight acres a short distance away. “The biggest problem that I face in my business is that most people have not been sensitized enough about
this clonal eucalyptus and are therefore reluctant to grow it owing to the negative publicity about the tree,� says Mr. Mwambogo. He adds, however, that he has been attending public barazas and field days to create awareness about clonal technology so that local farmers change their attitude towards this tree because it is not destructive to the environment when it is planted at the right site.
Developing entrepreneurs at the grassroots level The Kaweru SHG was formed as a Farmer Field School (FFS) by the Kenya Forest Service mainly to raise seedlings for planting in the degraded forests and on the hilltops in Imenti South district, Eastern Province. However, the group, consisting of 35 members (10 men and 25 women), started to experience challenges in the form of group dynamics, and inadequacy in supply of quality seed, lack of knowledge about tree
nursery management, lack of polythelene tubes and limited knowledge on record-keeping. Africa Harvest’s Trees for Energy Project field officer, David Kithinji, saw the group’s potential. His first priority was to train them in group dynamics and the importance of proper record-keeping. After the training the group received about 5000 polythene tubes and 1 kilogram of mixed seed of Eucalyptus grandis, Vitex keniensis, Croton megalocarpus and Moringa oliefera. In addition, he organized for 10 other farmer groups in the district to visit the nursery and share their experiences on seedlings production and other development-related issues. Since the group had also received training in nursery management, within a short time, the seedlings flourished. Africa Harvest was among the first to support the group by purchasing 700 indigenous trees to rehabilitate the riverline of River Iraru, which is a tributary of River Tana, where there are hydro dams that generate power for the country.
Members of a Kaweru group tending to their trees.
Trees for Energy Project
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To boost their income and improve their livelihoods, the group started other income-generating activities to supplement the sale of seedlings during some months when they are in low demand. These activities included planting of trees in schools, institutions and private farms through negotiated contracts; lending of soft loans to the group members and needy community members at an interest rate of 1% and 10% respectively; and growing of high-yielding variety of bananas on a commercial scale. The group also entered the paraffin business in 2010. Through selling 20,000 seedlings of mixed indigenous and exotic trees to Africa Harvest, Kenya Forest Service, Tana and Athi River Development Authority (TARDA) and individual farmers, the group raised enough capital, which facilitated borrowing an additional Ksh 60,000 from a cooperative society to start a paraffin business. Through this business the group has facilitated the local community, which in the past had to walk long distances to buy paraffin for household lighting. To conduct their business, the group has rented a shop at Ksh 1000 per month. The group has also employed a young man who earns Ksh 1500 a month, who manages the business on behalf of the members on a daily basis. Money for paying the rent and for paying the employee comes from profits made from the sale of paraffin. Any additional profit that comes out of this business is loaned to the needy group members and other needy members of the community, which has greatly helped improve their livelihoods.
Rehabilitation of Kyambolo dam In Kitui district Kitui is one of the driest districts in Kenya and known for receiving donations especially food. In the interior
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
of the district, one finds the Kyambolo dam, located in Muthini sub-location. The dam serves 20 villages with a population of about 4,000; the other closest dam is about 10 km away, making Kyambolo a very important resource for the local community. However, having been constructed in 1958, the dam had become debilitated. Regeneration and repair faced the following challenges: Degradation of the catchments area through overgrazing and poor land use accelerating soil erosion and silting of the dam; no natural regeneration around the dam due to grazing, making it unstable; and the lack of cohesiveness among the community members, who had no common activity that would encourage them to participate in the dam maintenance as a unit. When Africa Harvest came into contact with the community, the first challenge was to form a cohesive group to work with, followed by community mobilization to participate in the rehabilitation of the dam by planting indigenous trees. In collaboration with the Kenya Forest Service Extension officer, the local community was advised on species selection, spacing, pitting and planting. About 900 seedlings were supplied by the Kyambai women’s group, who had received 4,000 potting tubes from Africa Harvest, along with seeds of Melia volkensii, Moringa oleifera, Croton megalocarpus, Delonix regia, Senna siamea and Senna spectabilis. In addition, Africa Harvest had sponsored the women’s group for an exchange visit to Matinyani to visit the Mumiiyo SHG, where they gathered a lot of technical information.
Maasai community engaging in tree planting
Jane Ndiritu of Africa Harvest showing Maasai men how to plant trees for better establishment.
Lucy Wandiri, Africa Harvest’s Filed Officer, washing her hands after showing the community members how to plant a tree.
Maasai men preparing a plot to plant a tree.
Trees for Energy Project
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Gadam Sorghum Project
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Climate confirms sorghum as strategic crop In Kenya, only 8% of the total land area is considered arable, while 80% of the total land area is Arid and Semi Arid lands (ASALs). The annual rainfall varies from 200mm to 500mm and droughts are highly prevalent. With the increasing population in Kenya, coupled with climatic changes, the ASALs of Kenya need to be turned into crop baskets that will increasingly play a bigger role in food security. As Africa Harvest pursues its vision of Africa free of hunger, poverty and malnutrition, it becomes critical to scientifically study crops that would do well in ASAL regions. One such crop is sorghum, which is
Round table discussion among the stakeholders: Africa Harvest, MoA, KARI and a sorghum trader at the MoA office in Mwingi Agriculture office.
Dr Rose Njeru (center), Director, Technology Deployment, gives a hand to farmers in Mbere South, during sorghum winnowing, while Mr Lawrence Maina (left), Agriculture Manager, East Africa Malting Limited, takes notes on the process, while Africa Harvest sorghum field team coordinator and the famers are a willing audience.
Gadam Sorghum Project
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David Kimani, the Sorghum Project Team Coordinator, training farmers on the sorghum whole value chain process during a field day
Lucy Wandiri, Embu sorghum field officer, in the storage room where the seed is kept until its distribution. This room belongs to one of the farmers, revealing the latter’s commitment to making a success of the project.
indigenous to Africa and well adapted to drought conditions, is heat tolerant and especially important in ASALs.
alcoholic beverages, and as a bio-fuel feedstock for the production of renewable fuel (ethanol)—from sweet sorghum.
Sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop grown in the world; and is a dietary staple for more than 300 million people in more than 30 countries. In Africa alone, close to 300 million people depend on Sorghum for food and sustenance. Sorghum is a multipurpose crop and can be used as food, fodder (animal and chicken feed), in the production of
Recent trends in commercial brewing in Africa point to sorghum gaining prominence as barley production becomes more expensive and increasingly harder to source due to the effect of global climatic change. Realizing an opportunity for food security
Farmers in Mwingi receiving the Gadam sorghum seed from Africa Harvest through one of its field officers.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
A truck from which sorghum seeds are being offloaded. These seeds are going to be distributed to the farmers in readiness for the planting season. Seed distribution and systems access are a vital component of the sorghum whole value chain.
The Africa Harvest team, Wangari Kiragu and David Kithinji, discuss with a KARI agricultural officer and training field officers on how to set up a demonstration site on which farmer groups can learn how to plant sorghum.
intervention and commercialization of sorghum production with a market pull strategy, Africa Harvest forged a partnership with East Africa Maltings Ltd. (EAML), which is a subsidiary of East Africa Breweries Ltd, to encourage cultivation of Gadam project. The project targeted the arid and semi-arid areas of the country, where sorghum does far much better than the highly esteemed maize. Known for their reliance on food relief, these dry regions of Kenya would not only become food secure, but also generate income through the sale of sorghum to a ready market, including EAML, among others. Africa Harvest was picked for this revolutionary partnership because of its vast experience in community mobilization and robust resource management skills, which the organization has exhibited through its pioneering and highly successful TC banana and Trees for Energy Projects.
Farmers learning how to plant the sorghum crop at a farmermanaged demonstration site.
Kitui, Masinga, Embu and Imenti regions. Farmers were encouraged to grow Gadam sorghum on a commercial scale, with Africa Harvest being responsible for the logistics through its elaborate network of field officers. The organization has been partly responsible for the distribution of seed either directly to the farmers or through local agro-dealers who Africa Harvest has identified and supplied with Mary Kimwele in her sorghum farm, accompanied by two other farmers and David Kimani.
The project started in late 2009 with the mobilization of farmer groups in Tharaka, Nithi, Maara, Mbeere, Gadam Sorghum Project
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Why Gadam sorghum? •
High yielding
•
Early maturing
•
The seed has no dormancy—thus it can be planted soon after harvesting
•
It has more carbohydrates than other varieties
For high yields, follow-up visits have to be made in order to monitor the crop’s progress in terms of pest and disease management.
seeds, In other instances, farmers accessed the seed through appointed distributors by paying for it through financial institutions.
the growing phase and also at post-harvesting stage. They are also introduced to the buyer appointed by EAML and to the grain collection centers.
“Gadam sorghum was developed by KARI. According to Dr. Njeru, through use of capacity building and technology deployment, Africa Harvest has ensured that high-quality seeds from KARI and the Western Seed Company are available to the farmers at the right time. Further, the organization has identified seed merchants in the cultivation areas, who will stock seeds and sell them to the farmers at Ksh135 per kg. Field officers have been given the responsibility of linking farmers’ groups to the seed merchants to enhance delivery. But, in some instances, field officers deliver the seeds to the farmers (directly).
“In cases where farmers require credit, Africa Harvest has linked them to micro-finance institutions. We engage with the community…we do not just dump technology on them, and this helps them to make informed decisions,” says Dr. Njeru. She says that Africa Harvest works with credible partners in helping the provincial administration to draw synergies and ensure sustainability.
The organization has also ensured that farmers are taught about proper management of the crop, during
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
The Vice President visits Pauline Mary Kimwele's sorghum field “You mean the vice president visited my farm because of muphia (sorghum),” Mary Kimwele kept repeating, in disbelief mixed with tears of joy, after the vice
president, Hon. Stephen Kalonzo, visited her farm to see the potential of growing sorghum in the Eastern Province. Like many other small-scale farmers in the Eastern Province, Mary devalued sorghum, which was fetching her very little in the market. She clearly recalls her past experience where at one point she produced 80 bags of sorghum and her quest to not only pay school fees for her children but also subsidize her husband’s income was thwarted. According to her, that experience left a bitter taste in her mouth on account of the low price of the grain, which stagnated at Ksh. 5 per kg despite her holding onto her produce for two months in the hope that prices would improve.
However, the script has changed for Mary, who today sells Gadam sorghum at Ksh 17 per kilo. The EAML Sorghum Value Chain Project was an answer to her prayers, particularly considering the guaranteed market and better price. A mother of two boys and a girl, Mary lives on a 12-acre plot in Thitha village, Enzui location, Central Division, Mwingi district in the Eastern Province of Kenya. Guided by a strong desire and resolve not to miss out on the opportunity, Mary and other members of Erimbani Farmers’ Association went out on a limb, sending someone all the way to Kitui town, 95 km from Mwingi, for the Gadam sorghum seed. The group, which was formed in 2006, is today involved in growing various
The Vice President visiting Mary Kimwele at her farm. With him are Dr Wambugu and Dr Njeru.
Gadam Sorghum Project
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Esther and her two children, Benjamin Kakai and Mbete, who have benefited greatly from consuming sorghum products.
Kakai and Mbete’s medication that will be a part of their remaining lives.
Simon Mwinzi, Africa Harvest Field Officer, distributing sorghum seeds to farmers in Kitui, Eastern Province, Kenya.
crops like maize, beans, traditional sorghum, and green gram and in beekeeping. Africa Harvest has provided the group with necessary skills in growing Gadam sorghum. Mary’s dream is to produce 100 bags of sorghum and take advantage of the opportunity to enhance her household income and hopefully increase the family wealth and fortune. In furtherance of this dream, after receiving training on good agronomic practices and crop husbandry, she has grown sorghum on two acres of land and is hoping to harvest more grain. She wanted to have more acreage
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
with diabetes a few years later. After learning about Gadam sorghum, she prefers it to the other varieties because of the many benefits it has both for home consumption and as a commercial crop. With the growing of sorghum and its regular consumption, her children’s blood sugar levels have significantly dropped and consequently, the medication dosages has been reduced. The reduced expenditure on drugs has had a considerable impact on the family’s financial status. Joyce began planting sorghum when she was diagnosed with the same condition as Esther’s two children. She says it has enabled her to save a lot of money, because in the past she would have to travel to Nairobi (about 150 km away) to purchase lowsugar flour. However, she intends to change from the Kamenzele to the Gadam variety after discovering the properties that it has, including a ready market to sell surplus. Joyce (54) is a village elder in Itoleka, Kitui District, who suffers from diabetes. The treatment has been putting a strain on her finances. With her is her mother, who also benefits from the daily intake of sorghum.
Joyce showing the Kamenzele variety of sorghum that she uses, to enumerator Sam Muema. She has decided to start growing Gadam after she heard about its many benefits from friends.
in the 2010 season, but had to limit herself because of a shortage of oxen to plough the land. Her plan is to progressively increase the acreage under sorghum cultivation with time.
Benefits of consuming sorghum Esther Kalundi always viewed sorghum growing as a cultural practice, until recently, when her family had to deal with certain medical conditions. The value of growing sorghum hit Esther when her son Benjamin Kakai was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 18. She was advised to grow sorghum on a larger scale, as it is a rich source of food with low sugar content. She now plants sorghum every season, especially after her second child, Mbete, was also diagnosed
Gadam Sorghum Project
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Community Engagement: McLaughlin Rotman Project, Canada
Data collection is vital to monitor any project involving research. It is from such exercises that one can evaluate the progress of the project. Here Ken Mburu of Africa Harvest is engaged in data collection.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
This project seeks to design and pilot-test public engagement strategy for the introduction of nutritionally enhanced sorghum to counter micronutrient deficiencies in the sorghum-growing areas of Kenya.
informed the generation of data collection tools composed of questionnaire and interviews. The baseline survey revealed critical issues in community engagement that would need to be considered when deploying technology.
In Kenya the project’s site is Itoleka location, Kitui district, in the Eastern part of the country, where there is a sorghum-growing community. After identification and engagement with relevant stakeholders in the sorghum value chain, the critical issues and gaps for delivery of impact were analyzed. This was followed by a situational analysis, which
Critical gaps Few small-scale farmers have opted for certified sorghum seed cultivation (used by 13 % of villagers in Itoleka) due to poor access; limited knowledge about its performance; inappropriate agronomic practices; the common perception that sorghum is
Simon Mwinzi conducting an interview with a farmer. With him is a village elder (wearing a cap). Enumerators are accompanied by village elders so that they are accepted by community members.
Community Engagement: McLaughlin Rotman Project, Canada
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a subsistence crop and not a cash crop; and the lack of trusted markets. The Kitu district nutritionists expressed the need to be provided with critical nutritional information on locally available and affordable foods because recommended remedies for malnutrition problems focused on foods that were unaffordable for most members of the community.
Communication: gateway to community engagement towards technology adoption The audience was segmented and some key issues emerged about the farmer audience: they are not information seekers but the little information
they seek ranges from agriculture, to business opportunities, to health and nutrition-related issues; they favor open dialogue with community leaders and other development agents as opposed to the top-bottom approach, where they receive directives; whereas 90% of the men are enthusiastic to be involved in decision-making, only 3% of the women are keen. After identifying the needs and gaps at the baseline level, interactive messages focusing on four key themes were developed: 1. Farming as a business and new methods of farming and technologies; 2. Education on genetically modified crops; 3. Nutritional characteristics of sorghum; and 4. Nutritional
Community engagement research showed that one of the best ways to engage a community is through using provincial administrators like Village Chiefs, who constitute one of the most trusted, available, credible, accessible and durable channel of communication. Above, Chief Maliku training village elders on sorgum.Chief Maliku and other identified credible spokespersons were trained by Africa Harvest, and were then empowered to train village elders, who in turn could reach out to the farmers.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Research further showed that nutritionists are credible messengers when it comes to community engagement. Above, Norah Musau, a nutritionist, is seen teaching village elders the nutritional value of sorghum and how to combine it with other energy-boosting foods.
information on locally available and affordable foods. It emerged that the community’s credible and trusted sources of messages are provincial administrators, followed by community leaders and MoA extension officers; they were the spokespersons who were trained and shared information with the rest of the community. In terms of relevant channels for promoting and disseminating information, there was a gender difference—while men considered MoA extension officers as the most accessible, available, affordable, acceptable, durable and trusted channel of community engagement, women rated local opinion leaders highly. Other important channels that emerged were Ministry of Health and NGOs. Both genders did not trust information coming from newspapers, but community radios were highly favored, with
one local station called Mucyii FM emerging as the most popular radio station. Close to 90% of the respondents own mobile phones, which make it another critical channel to be used in disseminating messages, but not necessarily as a reliable feedback system. In terms of feedback mechanism, village elders and chiefs were identified as channels for passing feedback on development-related issues. Training of farmers, followed by barazas and community radio stations were highly appreciated as the tools that would deliver messages, while posters and newspapers were ranked as the least effective ways of engaging the community. Based on this information, communication tools for disseminating the identified messages were developed and relevant training modules for the identified spokespersons were also generated.
Community Engagement: McLaughlin Rotman Project, Canada
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Communication for Development Program
“More than 850 million people in developing countries are excluded from a wide range of information and knowledge, with the rural poor in particular remaining isolated from both traditional media and new information and communication technologies which would improve their livelihoods� ( http://www.rdfs.net/themes/ communication_en.htm).
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Nicholas Mutune, Africa Harvest Field officer,, being interviewed by the radio presenter of the KBC Kimeru service, which is one of the channels used in sharing agricultural technologies with farmers.
The Communication Program was one of the first programs to be started at Africa Harvest during its early phase. The overall objectives of the Program are: 1. To provide international outreach in support of biotechnology, especially genetically modified crops in Africa and globally through partnership with Croplife International. 2. To support Africa Harvest technology adoption through outreach activities like media, workshops, documentation, and community engagement models among others. 3. Capacity building focusing on sciencecommunication to empower media personnel, scientists, policy makers amongst other key players. Knowing the tight correlation between development and communication, the Africa Harvest Communication Program continues to transform and enlighten various stakeholders like farmers, the media personnel, and extension workers at different levels, including sharing knowledge and skills, debating
and learning for sustainable and significant change through attending workshops, seminars, trainings, field days and barazas which help build a great social network among them. The communication development process goes beyond information dissemination to facilitate active participation and stakeholder dialogue. It highlights the importance of raising awareness, the cultural dimensions of development, local knowledge, experiential learning, information sharing and the active participation of rural people and other stakeholders in decision making. To dialogue with its diverse stakeholders, the Africa Harvest Communication Program uses various media and channels of communication, which range from folk media and traditional social groupings/networks to rural radio for community development. Video and multimedia modules are also used for training. The internet is also used for linking researchers, development partners, educators, extensionists and other stakeholders in the agricultural innovation continuum.
Daniel Kamanga, Director, Communication for Development, consults with Benson Kariuki, Senior Communication Officer during a workshop.
Communication for Development Program
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Information flow at every level is critical, hence regular capacity building of credible spokespersons is undertaken to equip them with relevant information to share with farmers. Here Dr Rose Njeru trains both Sorghum Project and Tissue Culture Project field officers to increase their efficiency for better transfer of knowledge. Jane Ndiritu, Africa Harvest Program Assistant (third from left), and Ngugi, a TC farmer showing the signs of a healthy bunch to the Mathare Community Outreach Secondary Students.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Dr Florence Wambugu (third from right), led a Kenyan delegation to the University of Pretoria’s Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI). The meeting was organized by the Communication Director, Mr Daniel Kamanga (second from left), who heads the Foundation’s office in South Africa. Others in the picture include delegates from the Ministry of Energy in Kenya, the Tree Biotech Project at Karura and hosts from FABI.
Dr Wambugu, with newfound friends at the University of Bath in the UK, where she and Daniel Kamanga, visited to explore collaboration
Communication for Development Program
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International outreach through media
CropLife activities
“Communication for Development (ComDev) is a social process based on dialogue using a broad range of tools and methods. It is about seeking change at different levels including listening, establishing trust, sharing knowledge and skills, building policies, debating and learning for sustained and meaningful change” (http://www.fao.org/nr/comdev/comdevhome/en/).
Africa Harvest is proud of its working relationship with CropLife International for the seventh consecutive year. CropLife International is a global federation that represents the plant science industry by addressing international developments in crop protection and agricultural biotechnology. Over the years, Africa Harvest's Communications program, through its partnership with CropLife and other institutions, has influenced the political and social landscape within Eastern Africa to be more aware, more knowledgeable and accepting of agricultural biotechnology. The project scope included Kenya and Uganda.
Through a TV program called “Jimmy Global Harvest” with British Broadcasting Cooperation (BBC), a documentary of the Africa Harvest TC Banana Project was recorded and aired. Dr. Florence Wambugu was featured showing how the project started and the impact it had achieved at the grassroot level. The story of Esther Gachugu, who today owns a pickup vehicle and a modern kitchen was highlighted.
Documentation is an integral part of the Communication Project. Here, a consultant is seen shooting for a program on the Itoleka Public Engagement Survey done in Kitui, Eastern Kenya.
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
The most significant event was the promulgation of the Biosafety Act in Kenya in February 2009. Passage of the legislation through parliament and its assent by the President of Kenya was the result of several years of effort by Africa Harvest and other institutions in sensitization, awareness and education of
Julia Kagunda, Africa Harvest Senior Communication Officer, with Felix Mmboyi of the Africa Biotechnology Stakeholders Forum (ABSF) at a CropLife meeting in Washington DC.
legislators and government officials on the benefits of biotechnology for the nation. One advantage of the legislation is that it provides a mechanism to deregulate and commercialize several biotechnologybased products that are stuck in the research stages; several of them being in public research institutions. To facilitate this process, a training workshop on compliance management of field trials and communication was held in September 2009. Over 30 scientists from various research institutions in Kenya and Uganda gathered to learn more about the principles and practice of managing field trials as part of the production process of agri-biotech products. Furthermore, they learnt of the importance of communicating with stakeholders and various strategies to handle issues that arise within their projects. Besides existing products, entrepreneurship is a key component in establishing an indigenous and vibrant biotech industry in East Africa that can impact the regional economy. Cognizant of the entrepreneurial potential in the next generation, Africa Harvest in collaboration with the Biochemistry and Biotechnology Students Association of Kenya hosted a regional conference on biotechnology in November 2009 where students from East African tertiary institutions learnt more about opportunities in biotechnology from institutional representatives and discussed various ideas and opportunities amongst their peers.
and notices in a bid to improve information flow and enhance networking within these institutions. The websites also provide platforms to support the other CropLife activities. Monthly newsletters are also circulated to country-specific email databases to draw target audiences to the websites. Additionally, audiovisual material including radio clips and video interviews are displayed on the websites.
Danforth/Biosafety Resource Network (BRN) The main objectives of the project included Standard IM Strategy for each project, Standard Message Maps, Standard Question and Answer (Q&A) and Standardized GC#9 IM Strategy & Message Maps developed and agreed to by PIs of the three projects. Some of the activities that took place in 2009 included the launch of the GC9 website, individual project IM training and joint GC9 training in IM, and setting up of the ongoing telephonic and email support for each of the three African GC9 Projects
Nairobi Agricultural Show: Even military personnel are interested in TC banana technology as evidenced by the officers visiting the Africa Harvest stand manned by Nicholas Mutune, TC banana field officer (in the center).
Two biotechnology website portals (www. biotechkenya.org and www.biotechuganda.org), both launched in 2009, have provided media with a forum to effectively communicate factual information on biotechnology in their respective countries to a wide audience. The websites, whose content has been developed and uploaded by Africa Harvest, also provide opportunities for research and academic institutions to avail publications, advertisements Communication for Development Program
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Dr Wambugu interacting with Senator, the Honorable Hazel Manning, spouse of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Wambugu was the keynote feature speaker at the Spouse Dialogue meeting in November, during the Heads of Government of the Commonwealth meeting in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Wambugu made a presentation on “Investing in Green Technology for Economic Prosperity".
Dr Wambugu receives the Honorary Doctors of Science (DSC) degree from Lord Tugendhat, Chancellor of the University of Bath.
Swiss Development Agency (SDA)
Africa Harvest's institutional and internal communication systems
Africa Harvest was among the key stakeholders brought together by SDA for a consultative workshop to identify gaps and inform mainstreaming of vegetative propagated seeds in Southern Africa. The objectives were to document Research & Development, policy and institutional progress in seed systems of vegetatively propagated crops in southern Africa: Document gaps in the development of seed systems of vegetatively propagated crops, take stock of existing infrastructure including tissue culture and insect proof screen house facilities for producing and handling clean seed materials for distribution to farmers while identifying demand or supply aspects. Africa Harvest also shared its experience in the deployment of TC banana.
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Structured Internal and institutional communication systems are critical for the effective running of organizations. In its efforts to share information with its diverse stakeholders, Africa Harvest makes use of internal and external newsletters, documentation of information through electronic and print channel, media coverage, and the www.africaharvest.org website where the resources section has been revamped, making various reports and publications more accessible.
University of Bath awards Dr F. Wambugu an honorary degree of Doctor of Science On July 2, 2009, Dr Florence Wambugu received an honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from the
The Burkinabe family in a Bt Cotton field in Houmbe, Burkina Faso.
Biotechnology University of Bath in Britain, her former university from where she had obtained her PhD degree for research on ‘In vitro and epidemiological studies of sweet potato virus diseases in Kenya’ She said: “I am very excited to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Bath and for being acknowledged for the work we are doing through
Africa Harvest, of changing lives of small-scale farmers though the adoption of agricultural technology”. Referring to the passing of the Kenya Biosafety bill, Dr. Wambugu added: “It is a particularly special time for me because my own country, Kenya, has passed a biotech law that allows scientists to use biotechnology to address the numerous agricultural challenges we confront.”
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Finance, Administration and New Business Development Program
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
The Finance, Administration and New Business Development supports all the other programs, including governance, through the Board of Directors, financial management, administration, human resources, partnerships and fundraising. This program provides a structure for the institution's growth and development, and for expansion of both projects and networks in Africa. The Program registered a strong financial performance in 2009. Africa Harvest met its financial and managerial obligations due its robust structural and operational policies, which have been responsible for its continuity as an organization. It also enjoyed fruitful and rewarding working relations with its partner organizations. Nevertheless, there were challenges during the period under review. In 2009, the global financial meltdown reduced funding from Africa Harvest’s traditional donors. However, funds available were prudently disbursed according to the milestones agreed
upon with the donors and partner organizations. Fund utilization was monitored through specific mechanisms including regular site visits to the recipient organizations.
Board matters The board has been a critical factor in Africa Harvest’s success because it has monitored and ensured that the organization operates within the policy framework approved by the board and within allocated resources. During the year under review, Dr. Kanayo Nwanze resigned from the board after his appointment as the President of IFAD. He served as the Chair of the Board from 2005 to 2009. During his tenure, Dr. Nwanze provided strong leadership, instituting organizational policies that served to anchor Africa Harvest firmly in the international agriculture development arena. He promoted high standards of responsibility and accountability at all levels in the organization.
Micheal Njuguna, Africa Harvest Deputy CEO, and the Director of Finance, Administration and New Business Development Program.
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Internship program
Staff matters
Africa Harvest believes in the development of manpower resources and has regularly accepted interns who work on its ongoing programs. The organization provides opportunities for university students and young graduates to undertake internships at its headquarters in Nairobi. These normally last between three and six months and are offered to students and young graduates wishing to gain practical experience and deeper knowledge of agricultural development work in Africa. The interns are fully involved in their programs under the supervision of a staff member.
In pursuit of staff cohesion, the entire Africa Harvest staff attended a 2-day annual retreat in July at the Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha, Kenya aimed at fostering a common vision and direction for all staff cadres. The retreat gave them an opportunity to reflect on the past in order to improve future interaction at all levels for greater productivity. This was also a time to bond by facilitating teambuilding and communication. Asked to evaluate what they considered as the benefit of the retreat, one of the participants stated, “I sensed unity of purpose and commitment to Africa Harvest’s strategic goals. I felt valued and my contributions (were) appreciated. I have a better understanding of the Africa Harvest technical program.
Africa Harvest continues to support interns who are hired and trains them in various tasks. Their work is monitored and supervised to ensure that they are on the right track. Often, other employees assist the interns, thereby creating an excellent working environment for them. This ensures that they gain expertise on various jobs.
Africa Harvest interns (from left) Carol Maina, Peggy Ayako, and Caroline Abate. All of them have learnt a lot from the organization through various duties assigned to them by their supervisors. These duties range from report writing, customer care to administrative functions, among others.
Friday high tea As is the tradition, every Friday, Africa Harvest staff members meet for high tea. It is a time for bonding and updating each other on office and field activities. “Realizing that the office is very busy, with staff members driving in and out for field activities, it is important to spend 30 minutes sharing a cup of tea and being informed of what is going on in different projects and departments,” says Mike Njuguna, Deputy CEO.
A team-building session during the Africa Harvest staff member retreat.
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Caroline Abate bends to pick a questionnaire from a pile of questionnaires in a carton. She gets up, chuckles and comfortably settles at her desk. She continues working on the data which she has been analyzing and interpreting for purposes of compiling a final report on the Itoleka Sorghum Baseline Survey, for the Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International (AHBFI). Last year, she graduated from The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, with a B.A. in Social Sciences, majoring in Sociology with Political Science as a subsidiary. Her sociable nature is obvious as she converses and enjoys a good relationship with everyone in the office. For the past three months, with the help of Africa Harvest’s staff members, Ms. Abate has learnt a lot on how research is conducted. ‘’I did a good job,’’ she says gladly, referring to a congratulatory remark by one of the directors. She works hard and strives to deliver her best. However, meeting deadlines is a challenge which she is constantly working at. Every day, has been an interesting and exciting experience as she bravely tackles different tasks assigned to her. She has assisted in the communication department and accompanied field officers to the field. Its 17:00 hours, Caroline contemplates on whether to leave or continue working. Finally, she makes up her mind to leave remarking: “I have spent a lot of time working in the communications department at Africa Harvest—an area that was new to me. Being a graduate in sociology, this experience has expanded my knowledge in other fields and greatly improved my report writing skills, necessary for reporting in sociology too. The field visits also served as a good introduction toward public engagement and the skills required.”
Caroline Abate conducting an interview on how sorghum has helped farmers. To her left are Esther Kalundi and her daughter Mbete and enumerator Joseph Ngwele.
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In 2009, Africa Harvest held its staff retreat in Naivasha, Rift Valley. Above: staff members interacting with one another during one of the sessions.
Staff members having a meal after a morning session of brainstorming.
Africa Harvest staff annual retreat photo shoot at the Great Rift Valley Lodge in Naivasha.
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Dr Ben Kanyenji from KARI, training Africa Harvest field officers on sorghum management at KARI – NARL, Nairobi.
Staff capacity building Julia Kagunda of Africa Harvest giving a presentation on the process of information sharing.
Dr Njeru during the training of sorghum and banana field officers at KARI-NARL.
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Profiles of Board Members Mr Joseph Gilbert Kibe succeeded Dr. Nwanze as Acting Chairman of Africa Harvest. He is also Chairman of the Kenya Horticulture Development Authority and served as Permanent Secretary in the Ministries of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, Commerce and Industry, Economic Planning, Water Development, Lands and Settlement, and Tourism and Wildlife in Kenya. He also currently serves as a director of more than ten private sector companies. Professor Shabd Acharya, an Indian national, joined the board in April 2009. He is currently an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, Jaipur, India. He was previously Professor of Agricultural Economics at the State Agricultural University
and Chairman, Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), Government of India, Ministry of Agriculture, New Delhi from 1992 to 1996. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Agricultural Economics from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute and has contributed immensely to the field of agricultural economics and policies in developing countries of Asia and Africa. He is a senior policy consultant with the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO); Vice President of the Indian National Academy of Agricultural Sciences; and a panel member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Science Council Dr Mary Alton Mackey (Ag. Vice Chair and Chair Audit Committee) is an international health and nutrition consultant to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and
From left: Dr Matin Qaim, Ms Gisèle Lopes d’Almeida ; Ms Prudence Ndlovu and the 2009 Acting Chairman – Mr Joe Kibe
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CARE in maternal and child health. Dr. Mackey co-chaired the GE Food and Health Innovation Committees of the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee to the Government of Canada from 2002–2008. Mr Andrew Fish (Secretary) is a policy and government affairs professional with experience in food, agriculture, and biotechnology regulation. He was former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Agriculture; consultant to the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology; and deputy chief counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. Ms Gisèle Lopes d’Almeida (Chair Governance Committee) is the founder and CEO of Interface, a network of CEOs and investors from small and medium African agribusinesses. She is also the founder of the West African AgriBusiness Network and
serves as a member on numerous boards of trustees and committees in regional and international organizations, including SPAAR, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Conseil Ouest et Centre Africain pour la Recherche et le Développement Agricoles (CORAF), and the CGIAR Private Sector Committee. Dr Matin Qaim is a Professor of International Food Economics and Rural Development at the Georg-August-University of Goettingen, with research expertise in agriculture technology adoption and impact in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including biofortified crops. He also serves on the Golden Rice Humanitarian Board and the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maíz y Trigo (CIMMYT) Board of Trustees.
From left: Mr Andrew Fish (Board Secretary), Ms Prudence Ndlovu; Prof Shabd Acharya and Dr Mary Mackey
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Dr Florence Wambugu is the Founder, Director, and Chief Executive Officer of Africa Harvest. She serves as a Science Board member of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenge in Global Health; is a member of the Food Council of the World Economic Forum; and a Council Member of the Japan Science and Technology in Society Forum. Dr. Wambugu’s many honors and awards include the Yara Prize and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from her alma mater, the University of Bath. She was the former Africa Region Director of International Service for Acquisition of Agri Biotech (ISAAA) AfriCenter and the Principal Research Officer with KARI. Ms Prudence Ndlovu is a human resource development specialist, who serves as Managing Director of EPOD Global Pty Ltd. Ms. Ndlovu is a member of the South Africa Business Women Association and the Institute of Directors. Mr David Farber is Africa Harvest’s Legal Counsel. Although not a Member of the Board, he serves as the Board Secretary. He is a Legal Counsel with Patton Boggs LLP and ensures institutional compliance as well as handling of all legal matters. He is the co-chair of the firm’s Energy, Natural Resources, Environmental, Health and Safety practice group. He maintains a broad and diverse legal practice, ranging from health care litigation and advocacy to health and safety regulatory work. Mr. Farber has
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particular expertise in health care regulatory and litigation issues, insurance law, health and safety (OSHA and MSHA) disputes, environmental law, False Claims Act (health care and environmental) litigation, trade secret and employment issues, and business counseling. Mr Farber has also helped organize and serves as lead counsel for several trade associations, addressing a variety of federal and state issues.
Africa Harvest staff Communication for Development Program
Daniel Kamanga Director, Communication Program
Julia Kagunda Senior Communications and Administrative Officer
Benson Kariuki Senior Communications Officer
Yonela Benya Finance and Administration Assistant
Michael Njuguna Deputy CEO
Banana Project team
Wangari Kiragu Senior Program Officer
Israel Ikuro Field Assistant
Ken Macharia Field Officer
David Kimani Field Officer
Eugenio Kiogora Field Officer
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Regulatory Affairs
Tree Project Team
Dr Silas Obukosia Director Regulatory Affairs
Phillip Wamahiu Project Manager
Eliud Mutahi Field Officer
Githinji Muriungi Field Officer
Technology Deployment Team
Dr. Rose Njeru Director, Capacity Building & Technology Deployment Program
Hannah Murage Program Assistant
Tabby Karanja Senior Program officer
Paul Mugo Field officer
Harrison Gatobu Field officer
Technical Program
Lucy Wandiri Field officer
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Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009
Stephen Mburia Field officer
Simon Mwinzi Field officer
Ken Mburu Regulatory Officer
Finance, Administration and Business Development Team
Nehemiah Taylor Business Development Officer
James Njane Senior Accountant
Gideon Ndichu Accounts Assistant
Terry Amaya Administrative Assistant
Chris Nganga Office Assistant
Ane Njeri Site Service Assistant
Mercy Muthui PA, CEO
Antony Korir IT Administrator & PA Technical
Rose Kanduthu Procurement Officer
Mumbi Maina Administrative Assistant
Robert Mwangi Site Service Assistant
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Financial performance Africa Harvest’s success has also been attributed to the transparent and accountable manner in which it prepares and presents its annual budgets and audited financial statements. Annual audits for Kenya and US Corporation are conducted by Deloitte and Touche, international audit firms, while M.L. du Plessis audits Africa Harvest’s finances in South Africa. Further, Africa Harvest regularly presents financial reports to donor organizations on an agreed schedule and this has strengthened donor confidence. In addition to the existing funding organizations, two new donor organizations came on board last year. These are McLaughlin-Rotman Center – University of Toronto, Canada, which funded work on public engagement in Kenya. The other was Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa that supported the TC Banana Project in Kenya. During the year under review, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was in its fifth year of funding of the ABS Project. The University of Technology Queensland, Australia, was involved in virus indexing, while Crop Life supported communication and outreach programs in Kenya and Uganda. The Government of Kenya funded the project on Trees for Energy, while EAML supported the Gadam Sorghum Project. The Finance department also successfully oversaw the registration of Africa Harvest in Canada, which become the fourth country where the organization now has offices. Further, the Human Resources function, which operates under Finance, facilitated the recruitment of nine new staff members.
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Income and expense indicators
2009
2008
US $ “000”
US $ “000”
Grant & Investment Income
4,509
5,010
Expenditure Program Services
2,399
2,423
General and Administration Expenses
492
615
Subgrant to Other Partners
1,456
1,890
Fundraising
61
79
Total Expenditure
4,408
5,007
Net Surplus(Deficits)
101
3
Other Comprehensive Income Movement in Foreign Exchange Reserve
100
(83)
Total Comprehensive Income
201
(80)
Cashflow: Cash and cash equivalent beginning of the year
4,030
3,105
Cash and cash equivalent end of the year
3,823
4,030
Notes to accounts Funding Grant income has reduced by 10% due to less funding for the African Biofortified Sorghum(ABS Project) as we enter the last year of phase I. Three new projects commenced during the year: two sorghum projects funded by East African Breweries Ltd and Mc Laughlin Rotman Centre, and one TC banana project funded AGRA. Expenditure Africa Harvest expenses are grouped into four areas: program services: 55% (2008: 48%), general and administrative expenses: 11% (2008: 12%), subgrant to partners 33% (2008: 38%) and fundraising 1% (2008: 2%). Most of the funding has gone towards project implementation 88% (2008: 86%). Finance, Administration and New Business Development Program
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Acronyms and abbreviations
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ABS
Africa Biofortified Sorghum
AGRA
Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa
AHBFI
Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation International
ASARECA
Agricultural Research in East and Central Africa
CACP
Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices
CGIAR
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CIDA
Canadian International Development Agency
EAML
East Africa Malting Ltd.
FFS
Farmer Field School
GM
Genetically modified
IBC
Institutional Biosafety Committee
IFAD
International Fund for Agriculture Development
KARI
Kenya Agricultural Research Institute
KEPHIS
Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services
KPLC
Kenya Power and Lighting Company
NARL
National Agricultural Research Laboratories
TARDA
Tana and Athi River Development Authority
TOT
Training of Trainers
UNICEF
United Nations Children’s Fund
WHO
World Health Organization
Africa Harvest Annual Report 2009