A screen success story | Library Docs

Abstract

Since 2011, with funding assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), and with the support of the Andreas Baur Foundation and Souris-based Village Feast, PEI charity group Farmers Helping Farmers has been involved in a 3-year, food security project whose goal was to provide training and to demonstrate how to grow more drought-tolerant and diversified crops in the Kenyan communities of Kiirua and Marega. Farmers Helping Farmers has provided a number of women with access to an individual screen house or to a 4-woman shared green house. These structures are equipped with drip irrigation and also provide protection from birds and other animals. Charlie van Kampen, a PEI greenhouse grower went to Kenya to demonstrate how to produce tomatoes for the women's own families and to enable the village women to sell their excess crops commercially. Susan McKinnon and Roger Henry showed the women methods to make and use compost, and Winston Johnston worked with the village women to demonstrate ways to manage bacterial wilt. Margie Loo trained the women in crop rotation methods for minimizing disease problems. Eddy Dykerman from Brookfield Gardens demonstrated how to seed and grow carrots with equipment supplied by Veseys Seeds. Nova Scotia farmers Patricia Bishop and John Lohr helped the women with marketing their produce. The 3-year project has resulted in a 50% decrease in the number of women classified as severely food insecure, and the number of households classified as food secure has more than doubled. The largest success rate was for women who used a screen house. Cash sales of crops grown in screened gardens has resulted in $15 to $80 increase in monthly family income. Women in the pilot study project showed increases in their nutritional levels, and the project also benefitted over 1,500 school children by establishing a school lunch program in six rural schools within the two communities. Farmers Helping Farmers hopes to find new funding that will help to allow them to do further monitoring of the two communities, and the organization would like to start similar initiatives in other parts of Kenya. [Photograph accompanies article]

Date

2014-06-11

Issue

5

Title	A screen success story
Abstract	Since 2011, with funding assistance from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (DFATD), and with the support of the Andreas Baur Foundation and Souris-based Village Feast, PEI charity group Farmers Helping Farmers has been involved in a 3-year, food security project whose goal was to provide training and to demonstrate how to grow more drought-tolerant and diversified crops in the Kenyan communities of Kiirua and Marega. Farmers Helping Farmers has provided a number of women with access to an individual screen house or to a 4-woman shared green house. These structures are equipped with drip irrigation and also provide protection from birds and other animals. Charlie van Kampen, a PEI greenhouse grower went to Kenya to demonstrate how to produce tomatoes for the women's own families and to enable the village women to sell their excess crops commercially. Susan McKinnon and Roger Henry showed the women methods to make and use compost, and Winston Johnston worked with the village women to demonstrate ways to manage bacterial wilt. Margie Loo trained the women in crop rotation methods for minimizing disease problems. Eddy Dykerman from Brookfield Gardens demonstrated how to seed and grow carrots with equipment supplied by Veseys Seeds. Nova Scotia farmers Patricia Bishop and John Lohr helped the women with marketing their produce. The 3-year project has resulted in a 50% decrease in the number of women classified as severely food insecure, and the number of households classified as food secure has more than doubled. The largest success rate was for women who used a screen house. Cash sales of crops grown in screened gardens has resulted in $15 to $80 increase in monthly family income. Women in the pilot study project showed increases in their nutritional levels, and the project also benefitted over 1,500 school children by establishing a school lunch program in six rural schools within the two communities. Farmers Helping Farmers hopes to find new funding that will help to allow them to do further monitoring of the two communities, and the organization would like to start similar initiatives in other parts of Kenya. [Photograph accompanies article]
Journal	Island farmer
Date	2014-06-11
Volume	41
Issue	5
ISSN	0823-7735