My name is Samuel Jerry Odindo from Kisumu, Kenya. I am intending to engage in a longitudinal study that monitors the same households for one season and later on displays the information to the farmers on a noticeboard as a way of sensitizing them on good farm management practices. This will be called the Monitoring and Evaluation Food Security Programme (MEFOSEP).
The use of a noticeboard is a positioning concept from community health strategy that uses a chalkboard as community-based health information system to monitor health status in the community. The notice board displays a target plan and a monitoring blank table which is manually updated on a frequent basis.
The indicators have been grouped into six variables that are arranged in a meaningful order. These variables include land cultivation, irrigation, land value addition, crop protection, production and sales.
The production variable is our major concern in the MEFOSEP programme. Knowledge dissemination through noticeboards, trainings, demonstration farms and dialogues with the farmers is used as an intervention put in place as independent variables to propel an increase on the four dependent variables, which have a direct impact on the resultant production.
Key findings will be analyzed and used to determine the role of the information on the notice board in increasing food production and also to determine farm inputs and activities that are associated with production of food crops in a rural location. This approach is a way of eradicating poverty and hunger in the location.
Indicators monitored under each variable include:
- Land cultivation: acres to be ploughed, acres to be planted, quantity of seeds planted.
- Irrigation: number of households using drip irrigation.
- Land value addition: quantity of fertilizers used, acres of land weeded.
- Crop protection: quantity of pesticides used.
- Production: quantity harvested.
- Sales: quantity to be sold, amount received.
Lack of knowledge on the precise quantity of these farms’ input indicators have resulted in low harvests for food crops. An acre has the capacity to produce 2,100 kg, 350 kg, 182 kg, and 1350 kg of maize, beans, groundnuts, and vegetables, respectively. From our baseline survey, the production from an acre was 237kg, 63kg, 175kg, and 629kg of maize, beans, groundnuts and vegetables, respectively.
The deficit between the expected and observed production levels is quite enormous, especially in maize production. Maize production might continue to reduce drastically if nothing is done about it.
The deficits are 1863 kg, 287 kg, 7 kg, and 721 kg of maize, beans, groundnuts and vegetables. If converted to cash, loss in USD from an acre is $1863.00, $195.16, $1.40 and $80.11 dollars for maize, beans, groundnuts and vegetables, respectively. MEFOSEP tries to reduce this loss by 60% through the following strategy:
- Conducting a random soil test before the beginning of every planting season in order to come up with the relevant fertilizers to be applied, and using the recommended fertilizers to develop a target plan for the community and for each individual household.
- Uploading household target plans and actual reporting tools for each and every household, and training the household on how to access it through MEFOSEP website by use of their personal login codes.
- Training the community on good agricultural practices.
- Conducting monitoring activities.
- Discussing food security findings in a food security dialogue radio programme for the location. The radio dialogue programme will incorporate successful farmers and relevant stakeholders in order to discuss the reporting tool and to come up with a way forward of improving the food security in their county.
- Using the discussions from the radio dialogue on food security and the findings from the analyzed monitoring data to come up with an article for publication.
- Recommending a soil retest and change of fertilizers to a household depending on the change in food production resulting from fluctuation of soil pH due to frequent use of a given fertilizer.
- Redesigning a new target plan for the household and the community by use of new recommended fertilizers and uploading the plans in the website for households to access the information.
- Encouraging the sustainability of food production by use of both solid and liquid manure through farm demonstrations and trainings.
- Establishing a noticeboard that uses the community agricultural information system to update the noticeboard.
Mini Baseline Survey
This was done by selecting 50 households randomly in an area, and it helped to determine the major crops that are grown by the community members and their land allocations.
Literature Review
Preference ranking was used to select the preferred crops and a literature review was done on the variables that need to be planned for and monitored for the purposes of quantifying the indicators in the logical framework and the information displayed in the noticeboard.
Participatory Workshop Planning
The participatory planning was done for the purposes of the community being the owners of the displayed plan on the noticeboard. Information from the literature was used to facilitate the development of a logical framework with the help of the stakeholders.
Develop Baseline Tool
Indicators in the logical framework were used to develop a questionnaire tool.
Conduct Baseline Survey
Only households practicing farming were surveyed. The survey was done by trained CHWs living in the community.
Second Participatory Workshop Planning
This was for the purposes of modifying and integrating the findings from the survey with the already developed plan on the acreage of land ratio.
Monitoring
Monitoring was done by CHW by frequently collecting information for the two seasons using the household monitoring tool, and by updating the notice board.
Assessment
This will be done through dialogue to identify challenges and to come up with solutions that can help them to solve the food insecurity problem.
Updating the Notice Board
Because of the manual updates required, the noticeboard will be updated after every four months.
Assessment/ Dialogue
At the end of harvest, community members will assemble together in a dialogue meeting so that they can dialogue on the various issues that are hindering them from achieving the set target.
Training
The issues raised as challenges will form part of the modules to be incorporated in the training curriculum.
Publications
Two articles have already been published.
The success of the project will be measured by use of comparative analysis to determine if there is significant difference between the two seasons. Use of a productivity index table will allow us to check the response of the harvest as a function of the quantity of inputs for each every season.
Success will also be determined by checking on the rate of increase in production versus the rate of application of inputs. Check on the discussion part of our published article.
Of the USD $5000, USD $3500 will be used to upgrade the manual noticeboard to an electronic board that can be updated automatically, while USD $150 will be used to conduct random soil test analyses.
Blogpost and picture submitted by Samuel Odindo (Kisumu, Kenya) – info[at]mefosep.com
The content, structure and grammar is at the discretion of the author only.
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Wooow Sam this is a good innovation that can make farming more youthful. Use of noticeboard have never been allied anywhere and possibility of providing greater returns is high.Keep going boss we are really proud of what you are doing, your dreams are valid!!👍
sam these are the most fundermentals…step one should not deviate from i love efforts and i know you are now at the peak of your destiny…and opportuonity also com
es one…keep up……”ALL IS WELL”
dear sam success always comes after good work and even God himself has got a reward for this keep the fire blazing you have made it…and i also see this success in your destiny
Great tasted job i see..keep itbup mate.
God bless you.
Its an innovative project which is very feasible and sustainable
Great work Sam. Working with the community is the way to go. This is a great innovation. Cheers
Wow! Good job Sam. I always l9ve the way you address emerging challenges facing the globe. Food security is the way to go. Keep up.
Way to go Sam…..
Thanks Qabale. I’m looking forward to implement the intended activites
hey Sam its been great seeing this project start n being part of it I pray that it goes beyond what it can just do but succeed. God bless
Hi Sam, that’s a brilliant innovative idea best fitting for the hard times and challenges that farmers face in this region of Africa. I believe the findings will be a big step towards eradicating poverty.
Sam this is really good, I like the idea of the noticeboard which I have never seen before anywhere. Let’s promote agriculture in Africa.
Hey Sam, the participatory approach your strategy adopts is laudable. Enhanced production relies heavily on acceptance and replication of the good farming practice by the natives. Your approach addresses this adequately!
Sam this is commendable. I endorse it.
Hello sam this is a great idea that is feasible and sustainable as it entails the community health strategy,i do recommend it and i believ it will have a positive impact towards poverty reduction.
“Kudos”
Good luck with this project, Sam! It sounds very interesting, I will be very keen to see the results.
Dauglas, participatory is the way to go when addressing food security. This is for the purpose of taking care the components of food security. That is the component of food which are socially and culturally acceptable by the community members and meets their dietary needs can be ascertain very easily through participatory planning by use of preference ranking techniques.
Thanks Gerald, Lucy, Nzanzu, Robinson,Wenya, Given, Winnie, Dauglas, Clavins, Philip and Roryfenton for your comments.
Lucy you are right, this is a feasible project due to the fact that the resources are available that can implement the outline intended activities. What need to be done is to bring in board the various stakeholders engage in different services so that we can partner together in areas of commonality. The fact that first phase has been implemented successful, makes it to prove beyond doubt that it is feasible.
It sustainability is highly articulated by the fact that their is own contribution by the community by collecting data and updating on the noticeboard.
Given, all along people have been using the noticeboard for business purpose and to give direction and its always work by increasing the sales of the business organizations and for direction it helps in enabling someone to reach where he is going. Then why not to use it in food security if it works best in other areas?. I believe if its upgraded to an electronic board which is updated automatically, it will work well in improving food production and hence enhancing food security and reducing malnutrition.
Robinson I agree with you that emerging challenges on food security are enormous. We need to add some indicators on the board that tries to monitors some variables that had been identified from the Kisumu District Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, a consultation report for period 2001 to 2004. The report states that early land preparation,proper choice of the seed for different ecological zones and use of hybrid certified seeds is effective for production. The intended electronic board will incorporate these variables since they are easier to monitor by use of electronic devices other than manual monitoring.
Thanks Calvin Okungu, also still thanking you for the welcome you gave to us during your tenure as the Sub County Agricutural Officer of Kisumu West sub county and creating for us a forum to defend our proposal before the panel of the sub county development committee. Your input you made to our proposal before allowing us to defend before the committee was very helpful in enriching our work. Thanks
Philip, if the chalk baord have work well in monitoring health in the community, why not the notice board in improving food security. I believe it can work much better in the field of food security.
Rory results for the first phase of the project is out. Check in our 2 publications.The third publication was not accepted because it used the same approach to the previous one. So we are planning to change the approach by either analyzing our data again with different methods of analysis or we conduct random soil test analysis and make recommendation of new fertilizers found relevant to be used by farmers and then we write another article based on the recommended fertilizers
Great work Sam. Keep up the good job
Hi Sam good job. Having worked on a hospital farm project, what impact do you hope to create? The utilisation of CHWs is ingenious.
Sicily –
Good work Sam
Great initiative Sam…keep it up!
Sam I have seen the initiative work and am impressed that you started it when there was real need. The food boards have indeed helped monitor food security and I hope can be replicated elsewhere.
Keep up the good work.
Its a big step you have taken, i wish you all the best in your idea and hope your implementation will be a success
Thanks Sicily for your question. The impact we are trying to create include, increasing food production by helping farmers to plan well with the resources, based on the current low land fertility, to reduce malnutrition diseases and therefore improving the health of the people, secondly is to increase their sales, thereby improving the agribusiness and income level in the community hence having an impact on increase in enrollment for education. The monitoring and assessment update shall help the community to know if they are on track or out in terms of meeting the food security target.
The increase of trees plantation per acreage of land shall increase and sustain the rainfall amount enough to sustain yield for the climatic adaptable food crops.
It will develop knowledge which will be used by policy makers and government agencies to make policy relevant in solving food insecurity.
Yes Wilkins, it can be replicated somewhere else, based on the fact that that the board is formulated from a given strategy/methodology which qualifies it to meet the science criteria or standards of operation. its because of meeting this scientific standard, that’s why I have full assurance that it can be replicated somewhere else
Edwin, Omakore and Elvis, thanks for your encouragement
The above subject is indeed fundamental. It will be of immense benefit to Arid and Semi arid areas especially only country Kenya. Furthermore . I believe Samuel Odindo, From Kenya is according to me qualified for such programme. Keep on with the great work Sam. All the best.
Its a good thing to have something new in mind, kudos Sam. Let’s promote Agriculture through all ways. Perfect idea you have.
Thanks Bethwel. Yes, it will be of great help
Thanks Jacky. We have to promote it
M & E Food Security Programme is a great initiative. Our farmers need such approach. More so the communal approach to it makes it more commendable. Great work Sam!
Thanks Rose. You are right. We need it to improve food security
This is an amazing concept that practically and meaningfully engages farmers. Small scale farmers in remote settings will find this useful decision making tool. We hope that at some point, you will share with us a case study on the medium and long term impact
Thanks Denis. indeed from our previous dialogue session we had with them, we came to realise that they are not composting manure very well, instead they just pick it direct from the sun in the cattle shed and use it. This is why from my findings, manure they are using does not have an association with production.
That a good idear keep it up mr sam
Woow!!!! That is a nice idea and those are the ideas we need in the 21 st century.
Wooow keep going… Its a nyc project indeed… Wish u all the best
Thanks Moses, Brian and Nancy
Yes Brian. indeed we need one
The above subject is indeed fundamental. It will be of immense benefit to Arid and Semi arid areas especially only country Kenya. Furthermore . I believe Samuel Odindo, From Kenya is according to me qualified for such programme.
Great work Sam .Keep it up.
This is an amazing piece of work, i like the flow of your work and also the idea to improve food security.
May God see you through this project.
Thanks Alinani. The flow is logical and sequential in flow in a sytesmatic order
The above subject is indeed fundamental. It will be of immense benefit to Arid and Semi arid areas especially in my country Kenya. Furthermore . I believe Samuel Odindo, From Kenya is according to me qualified for such programme.
Good work Sam .
Sam, great work that you’re doing with MEFOSEP. Your dedicated and spirited investment in the right to food is an integral part of the 2030 sustainable development agenda. MEFOSEP’s people-centred approach is a prime example of putting innovation at the service of humanity. This is a model and initiative deserving of support from all corners of the globe so that we can further the endeavour it has undertaken – to bolster food self-sufficiency. MEFOSEP is an effective community development and capacity building tool in response to the impact and challenge of food insecurity (a threat in itself as well as a threat multiplier) and its devastating consequences. MEFOSEP is undoubtedly making a meaningful contribution to fostering a heightened state of well-being and to shaping a better world.
Great!! Commendable grass root community service!! way to go brother, continue giving back to the community. Finding such an innovation to improve food security status of the community is key to so many achievements.
This is bright idea Sam, it will immemsely assist in addressing food insecurity in Kenya & empower youths economically
great work my friend
For a project to be sustainable, it require Comunity participatory of its activities. Kindly highlight some of the activities the Comunity undertake that makes it to be Comunity own driven.
Sam, congrats for the innovation. implementation will be a great step. All the best.
Congrats Sam, well done and all the best
You had a dream in form of a vision, visualized it practised and the rest is already set to go. The far you have come all is well and God has already taken charge indeed you are a success in our diaspora. Kuddos Sam.
Such a beautiful piece of work that when implemented will elevate Africa’s crave for food security past of the basic tenses. Kindly defend this to the very highest echelons of the academic ladder. I commit to be firmly in support.
Good work Sam.For those who are illiterate how do you ensure they understand the board?
Thanks Diana. We use radio inform of radio dialogue to do so. Then, the CHW also visits them at their door step to give them more clarification
Thanks Tim. Data collection and updating the board is one of the activity the community participate in as their own activity
Thanks Amock. The project is on sustainable agriculture based on its ability to conduct soil test analysis and to come up with the right fertilizers. Apart from that, through our findings, we are also trying to encourage farmers to use farm yard manure. The issue of rainfall, we are trying to sort it out by encouraging the growing of trees for purpose of rain attraction. Under the indicator of irrigation, we encourage farmers to use bottles for drip irrigation. The use of bottle for irrigation is sustainable to farmers based on the fact that’s its affordable to them
Congratulations en all the best in all your work
Congratulations and all the best
This is very inspiring work Sam. Clearly a realistic and sustainable way of securing the food security in Western Kenya. Well thought.
good work some keep blazing you are already there