Forestry Training & Finance for 800 Farms in Kenya

INTRODUCTION

We hope this report finds all of us well. We are happy to share with you our progress report on forestry training and finance for the last three months. We thank you for your unwavering support even during this covid. Your support continue to enable us to work with the 800 small holder farmers in the drylands of Kenya to improve livelihoods, protect the environment and build communities through tree planting and trainings. Since 2009, we have continued to plant different and multipurpose tree species among smallholder farmers and so far, the first planted trees continue to improve the local microclimate, increase local biodiversity and farmers’ incomes from the sale of timber and non timber products. The community is more organised and the social fabric continue to strengthen as they work together and train together to bring desired outputs and impacts as they envision them and guided by DNRC. Apart from ecosystem services being realized from older planted trees, farmers continue to benefit financially from the sale of Moringa seeds and leave powder, firewood, poles and fruits from the trees. During this reporting quarter, the following activities took place under this project: Tree seedlings issuance to the farmers and schools. Maintenance of the tree nursery, Farmers follows ups to their individual farms and the end of the year get together preparations. Below are the details of these activities.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, the nursery staff were busy issuing farmers with ready to plant tree seedlings to plant in their individual farms during October-December rains. A total of 59,000 seedlings were issued to our farmers and 12 schools we work with to plant in their private farms and over 10,000 seedlings issued to other people outside the community. DNRC staff also continued to propagate and take care of smaller tree seedlings in the nursery to be planted in March-April rains.

OUTREACH AND TRAINING PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, the outreach staff were majorly involved in follow ups to make sure farmers are ready for tree planting. This is by making sure that farmers are preparing holes according to the number of trees they are able to plant during this rain season. All the 14 groups were visited and were trained in dryland tree holes preparations, tree pruning and sustainable harvest of the branches and tree care.

BI-ANNUAL FARMERS GET TOGETHER

Every year, all the 800 farmers meet twice in June and December to share experiences, eat together and also celebrate their achievements together through local songs and dances. So during this reporting quarter, DNRC outreach staff were busy coordinating and mobilising farmers for the end of year farmers get together party which took place in 18^th, December 2020 at DNRC grounds. Due to Covid protocols, only representatives of each group were able to physically attend. The government health protocols by then allowed only 200 people gatherings and held in open places. We followed all the health protocols to the latter and had very successful get-together without any cases of Covid in the community.

CHALLENGES

• Permanent water source remain our major challenge especially during the dry seasons
• Lower funds/resources mainly due to global covid effects on the economy

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Farmers trainings and follow ups
• Tree seedlings propagation with a target of 80,000 per year
• Education on covid protocols to our farmers and in the DNRC premises

Links:

• website

INTRODUCTION

Much greetings from Drylands Natural Resources Centre (DNRC). We are happy once more to share with you our progress report for the last three months on forestry training and finance. Despite the world wide Covid-19 pandemic which has affected our outreach program, we remained focused to our goals of environmental regeneration, economic enhancement and community regeneration. Due to the health guidelines issued by the government because of Covid pandemic, our group trainings have been slowed down since people are not allowed to congregate, but DNRC proceeded to do individual farmer follow ups and gave personalized trainings and follows. We also continued to propagate our diverse tree seedlings in the nursery to meet our target and even to bypass the target. This is because many people are at home thanks to Covid and have more time to plant more trees due to restricted movements and loss of livelihoods. Trees which have been planted since 2007 continue to mature for timber and timber products as well as positively influencing the microclimate in the community. This continued positive effect is a milestone towards environmental regeneration in terms of soil building as the trees constantly shade off their leaves which slowly decompose making the soils fertile and the constant layers of leaves help in moisture retention. Time like this, farmers continue to prune their trees for fire wood and sale the extra to DNRC for green charcoal production thus creating extra income for their families . Moringa which is one of the trees we promote with farmers continue to give farmers constant income from both sale of powder and the seeds. Our community social fabric has continued to grow strong and our farmers are more organised and together as they work on this tree planting project. Farmers are happy to be able to have a livelihood from this long term project and more want to join because with Covid, this has proven to make our farmers more resilient to pandemics such as covid.During the reporting quarter, the following activities took place; individual farmer follows ups and trainings, diverse seedlings propagation, potting, root pruning and general nursery management.

Below are detailed activities that took place during the reporting quarter.

DNRC TREE NURSERY PROGRAM

During the repotting quarter, we have propagated 35 diverse tree seedlings which include: paws paws, Mangoes, melia, calliandra, tree tomato, passion, eucalyptus camandulenses, gravellia , avocado, mulberry, kigelia, balbergia, senna siemea, Senna spectabilis, acacia polyacantha, Acacia xanthopolea, Acacia tortilis, Citrus, taminalia mentalis, Guavas, Moringa, Croton, Taminalia Brownii, Banana passion, Tamaridus indica, Zysygium, Berchemia, Vangueria, neem, Leuceana, Balanites. Currently our nursery has a cumulative of 63,691 seedlings of the above mentioned different tree species. We continue to propagate fast growing seedlings like moringa. During the reporting quarter, the nursery staff was also busy root pruning the outgrown seedlings.

DNRC OUTREACH PROGRAM

During the reporting quarter, our outreach personnel was busy doing individual follow ups on farmers farms and advising farmers where necessary on issues of woodlot expansion, perimeter planting for those with filled woodlots, pruning as well as pests control like termites.

CHALLENGES

• Since DNRC has no permanent source of water, a time like this we experience drastic water shortage as we have to scope sand from our seasonal river waani, so that we can get water and with slow recharge, we have water shortage and spending more on labour for the same.
• Our outreach program was really affected by the Covid pandemic as were not able to carry short term trainings and other income generating activities thus affecting the organization finances

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Seedlings issuance to both farmers and schools during this October-December rains
• Organize the end of year farmers annual meeting following the given health guidelines in the Country.

Links:

• see our website