Climate Smart Agriculture | Targeting the small farmer

[Music] we can't afford to ignore what is happening around us let me give you an example it's called right now in the city of nairobi and yet it's supposed to be a dry month what's happening ladies and gentlemen welcome to beyond profit i show that we shall be discussing mata's climate change and what exactly is happening to us because guess what you might think this is not my thing no it is why the food that you eat as well gets affected and you never know when food prices start going up like right now you're complaining about unga and the likes ladies and gentlemen this is all about climate and right here on beyond the profits we'll be examining what is a journey of sdgs esgs as the corporates are calling it and what is the progress we are making are the gatekeepers doing what is meant to be done and i'll be inviting people right here to help us understand policy players people in the industry and people who are really fighting to ensure that we have a safe place to work in and to live in welcome to beyond profits [Music] ladies and gentlemen welcome to beyond profit the first inaugural show right here on switch tv and on our conversation today with our guest we shall be talking about climate smart agriculture in africa what are the opportunities what can you learn about it is it new a new term to you you're right here in the right place to get to understand our guest today harold marty the country project manager right here in kenya at craft what is craft who is going to tell us about it but first let's take a look at this profile [Music] do [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] welcome to the show thank you it's glad to have you here and as you heard from the intro first of all welcome as our first guest of the show thank you uh this is a conversation that we really want to endear to people that listen as you go about your businesses it's important for you to as well think about the environment in which you operate which i know you're a big advocate of absolutely right so maybe people will be asking what is craft what is all this about and maybe you could sub an introduction of who you are and what you are doing as craft yeah yeah maybe i'll stick thank you i'll take a step back uh because i would want to start with the organization i work for yes so as i said my name is harold mate yeah the country project manager for craft and craft is the project of snv netherlands yeah and snv netherlands is a development organization we have been here for 55 years now in kenya and craft is a climate change forecast project that is dealing with um the interventions that are focusing on uh enabling uh small and medium enterprises and smaller farmers to actually um adapt to climate change and we have been discussing yeah the you can see and when you look around you can actually notice there are variations in weather patterns and rainfall seasons and all that so how do farmers and smes and cooperatives actually adapt to that environment so that is what craft is all about the project is implemented in three countries kenya ukraine and tanzania but i'll talk more about kenya yes which which is the portfolio that i'm managing okay wow i have hardly mentioned several sectors especially i have already mentioned smes as well as organizations so do you focus on training them or what exactly uh goes into the details so this project is focused is multifaceted yeah by one realizing that for you to be sustainable you need to engage the private sector absolutely and as i said we have been in development as an organization snb for 55 years in kenya and of course you have a lot of learning as we went along and realizing that the private sector plays a big role and a very central role in sustainability of whatever intervention that there is and most of the interventions that actually we do revolve around the private sector okay yes they are focused on supporting communities to achieve certain goals but we understand that engaging the private sector makes it sustainable okay so for us is approaching and targeting the smaller farmer but realizing for us to be able to sustainably do that we have to go through the private sector yeah and create sustainable interventions and solutions that the the target communities can actually be able to uh plug into and do whatever is that they would want to do that's why you asked about this more and medium enterprises you heard me talk about cooperatives and then the smaller farmers yeah yeah absolutely yeah let's just go to a bit of a definition for anybody who could be watching us asking these are terminologies that are passing me here and let's talk about smart agriculture climate smart agriculture yeah what is just that for a mere person who's saying okay educate me so um climate smart agriculture basically is an approach to agriculture yeah that puts into focus the various facets that contribute to your ability to produce optimally yeah in cognizant of the environment that you're in so when you talk about we a farmer will tell you rainfall is no longer reliable yeah think of it this way if farmers were able to actually because i know we are able to make at least a prediction that one week or even two weeks ahead that probably is going to rain yeah and there's the amount of rain in this region as a farmer if i had that information yeah and i know i have crops in the farm probably i would have this prior prime before just make sure that before it rains you're right i have i've made the smart decision to actually make an intervention so that is what you're calling climate smart agriculture yeah when you talk about crop production what goes into crop production most of our farmers sometimes are not used to looking at the soil and understanding what the soil is all about so they'll not do soil testing yeah they will a farmer say i want to buy fertilizer they know of course you need to put a compound fertilizer you need to do uh top dressing with the nitrogenous fertilizers but how much of it which ones of them because you need to know what is lacking in your soil sometimes you continue fertilizing um acidic soils yeah well well well as i'm supposed to put a lime to make sure the ph remember to actually not blow the actually because i love of below five yes will be acidic so basically is to to to say um how are we using information to make decisions yeah as farmers and as practitioners in the aggressive sector yeah so to me that is what i would i would define as a climate smart agriculture taking cognizant of the ecosystem that you're in and utilizing optimal production practices that are not harmful to your surroundings into the environment um and and do not contribute to what you call degradation in one or the other okay so that is the approach and talk about climate smart agriculture if it's about water use how do you efficiently use your water okay do you want to put a drip irrigation for the crop you're producing if it's viable yeah to efficiently use the little water that you may have now because you're saying probably the rinse have not been enough for the last maybe two three seasons yeah you know you're saying whatever what i get the the surface runoff that that could have been otherwise wasted can i harvest it yeah put it somewhere uh in a dam or in a in a tank yeah and use a drip irrigation to water now my crops and produce so that is climate smart agriculture and that's the approach that we want to take with our smaller farmers okay yeah wow i know i i'm just building a context here and you know you sit in a place where you can see where we are maybe as a country and even in africa in general and in kenya we keep saying that you know agriculture is the backbone of our economy and all that i know critics would argue about that now because of how things have been advancing yeah my question to you is this and i know it could go way beyond with statistics and all we don't go there but in your simple definition of explanation what is the current situation right now when it comes to our own here in the country in terms of agriculture and us really being sustainable by ourselves is it bad is it good yeah how can you say that in a sentence well um i wouldn't want to make um a conclusive answer to that because i would believe they are actors who are responsible for making those decisions in terms of where we are but if you look at our food situation the last maybe one year yeah it has not been pretty we haven't we have talked about an availability of maize yeah we've been about importing food from our neighbors and other places it tells you we have not been able to self-sustain yeah in terms of food production and it is a little bit good and worse yeah um and probability also goes with depending on how our because our aggregate is rain-fed it relies uh heavily heavily on rainfall yeah so whenever we have uh suboptimal rainfall we definitely get into the red in terms of food for the availability and we we now rely heavily on importation and by the way even when we have good rain by the way yeah we still import a certain percentage of food so generally we are saying we have we're still somewhere in the rest somewhere in the red we need to be sustainable we need to be to be self-sustaining yeah and of course we can put mechanisms yeah to try and see can we be able to get there i'll call you back another time we can talk about what i'm seeing in ethiopia wheat and all those things very good progress and we need to get there so in general you know climate smart agriculture is about an integrated approach as you've said to attain sustainable agriculture so my question uh in the context of africa what are the areas we can focus on uh to achieve this climate smart agriculture are there areas that could specifically put us too well i will talk in context of craft and what you're focused on what your focus and we are focused on three areas yeah one we are talking about uh investing in technologies and practices at the smaller farmer production level because we recognize that over 85 percent of our food is produced actually by smaller farmers the second thing is investing in small and medium enterprises again in in kenya for example over 85 percent of the food we consume is is is moved by small and medium enterprises and then the question is how do we facilitate these small and medium enterprises to be contributors to sustainable agriculture climate smart agriculture and then the policy agenda the enabling environment that whatever that we do or we seek to do must be supported by policy because whatever is not supported by policy yeah cannot be sustained in the long term yeah and and that's why we are working with the with the national government uh closely with the national government yeah and also the county governments because we understand that agriculture in kenya is actually domiciled at the counter level it is a county that actually um works with smaller farmers or in the agricultural sector and that's the way the constitution has put it so these actors who are really pertinent to agricultural production becomes uh key players so the issues of policy uh the private sectors in the smes and then the real doers of the of the work the smaller farmers okay yeah wow my goodness let me ask you one more question then we can take a break let's come back to just the work that you're doing as you started from the word go especially on this part of the continent what are some of the business opportunities that can be maximized to address climate change in africa are there some that you see they are numerous wow they are allowed for all the business people with a better list yes there are numerous opportunities yeah and we have been able to demonstrate as such with within craft wow the project we're implementing yeah and there has been a lot of interest from the private sector to participate yeah in in these interventions one is that when when you look at food yeah food is a basic need really everybody wants it you don't want you need it you need it you need it actually and if you go for a day without food of course if you unless you're fasting but even then you still want to eat so it is to say that food will always be a need and a commodity that people demand for yeah anytime of course it is shaped by our food habits and cultures so that the food we choose and the choices we make about the food we eat depends on our culture our eating culture yeah and therein lies now the opportunity but that opportunity of course need to be matched to the ability to produce this food for example now we are talking about maize and the question is how do you avail maize to consumers because that's people are talking about ugali you're right um but also it could also be about the slight change of eating habits and cultures yeah so if you look at the smaller farmer level when you look at businesses that provide support services it could be inputs it could be uh soil testing services it could be equipment including irrigation equipment farm tillage equipment those are business opportunities but those technologies need to be matched to the need and the farmer needs to realize what they need they need first of all to understand this is what i need to help me produce optimally the second thing is that with the smes they also realize that they have opportunity in terms of uh right now we do not have enough maize for example so we have to import okay but for this means is it possible to actually work with the smaller farmers to produce whatever crop or commodity you need yeah and that solves some of your inefficiencies in the valley chain the supply chain those are business opportunities for use and and there's a provision of services for example in the craft we are talking about um the issue of aggregation so for you to be able to move um efficiently you want to bulk commodities if it's amazing with sogum yeah can the use actually be part of the aggregators that can actually offer that service that's a job opportunity absolutely and if you talk about um provision of training yes it's about the youth also being able to provide the training to the smaller farmers in terms of what they need to do and their farm to become optimal producers so there are quite a number of opportunities that actually i see along um uh those possibilities should be no there should be no complaints over we don't have what yeah just go on the ground and start it's part of the you contribute yes the the beat you can yeah and other things also are playing to pro uh contributing to the job creation okay yeah wow we are watching beyond profits this is it and i'm telling you this is the new conversation where we're headed we take a short break we'll be right back [Music] welcome back to beyond prophets and we are saying listen there's need for us to think the future and really taking care of our motherland and this is the earth the climate talking mothers sdgs talking about esg's as well and what are we doing and today we have none other than uh harold mate who is the country project manager at craft here in kenya and he's just telling us what interventions are they doing especially with working with farmers on the ground harold before we went on a break you were talking to us about opportunities that people can maximize and you give several and so they're numerous if you missed it go to part one and you can share more later on but let me get into these other questions on how we can level investments leverage especially investments to everyday farmers to ensure that they have access to climate smart agriculture yeah so um again for the way we have looked at this and the craft yeah is we want to have farmers invest in in agriculture yeah but we we are aware that farmers may not be having access to uh credit for example financial services yeah in such a way that enables them to invest in in their in their farms and production systems um again at the sma level if you want to invest in technologies again um ability to access credit from our financial institutions again in the level in the in the eyes of climate smart agriculture you may not really get a product that speaks to that area as such so our work has been to of course do a mapping of the financial sector in kenya and the products that are available yeah and then match that to small and medium enterprises but also show um the opportunities to the financial players but we had this opportunity actually working with smaller farmers within groups and cooperatives and also the smes and of course for us we have come in also with the with the provision of small grants to the smes yeah by understanding that foreign to be able to invest in climate smart agriculture could be um at all order in the sense that for them they are they are fighting to remain afloat and profitable yeah and clemens matagracia may not have been their core uh work at the beginning they didn't really think about it so investing in that through small grants and facilitating some of the actions that we we think are going to actually um put them on the path to um looking at climate smart agriculture as part of the solution okay to their challenges especially within their specific religions wow yeah just walk us through maybe an example or two of how everyday farmers in africa are interacting with these new innovations yeah so we of course farmers learn best through demonstrations or by seeing so if you go to a farmer with a new technology um they are there is the way they are used to doing things so first of all they will look at it and not really be sure whether i want to change because it's a risk if you're telling farmers that you now need to do minimum tillage and they are not used to that you'll be wondering what if i do this minimum tillage and my crops fail and they fail what am i going to do and remember is a huge risk for them yeah so one of the things that we have done is to actually uh partner with the with the private sector again in terms of setting up demonstration farms so that we are saying we have these technologies technologies can be said seed varieties that are pest resistant tolerant yeah this is storyline um resistance resistant yeah so that can be a technology a technology can be a fertilizer yeah it can be a crop protection product it can be irrigation equipment so you need to test this technology and help the farmers learn why should i use this new seed variety yeah for example speaking to farmers in in nakuru region about potato seed and you you might think a potato is you can plant any potato because you just put it on the ground and it grows yeah however if you get what you call clean planting materials for potato certified yeah and you plant it you are going to really see a difference one in two aspects one in terms of the generations that the seed has been recycled so if you recycle it more its productivity becomes lower again it becomes vulnerable to uh diseases and pests but if you get clean seed that has straight from the the seed multiplication companies or individuals who are doing that you actually see a difference but of course you have to combine the seed and your farm practices including what fertilizers you put in remember then for you to know what to put in there then you need a soil testing and i can tell you most farmers including myself in the village soil testing was was really is not a thing it's nothing i mean i just put my money i'm good i put my manure i put my compound fertilizer yeah after my crop germinate i put my top dressing um maybe i spray to avoid to to mitigate against pests and diseases and i wait for my harvest and and perhaps i could actually have done better maybe the fertilizer i'm putting i'm wasting it because it is no longer available to the crop yeah but because traditionally no i need to put fertilizer i put it so those are some of the those are some of the actions we're telling farmers we need to change yeah we need to look at this very differently and because we have practitioners who are providing these services you need to embrace them so that you do it right and you produce optimally the issue is about optimal production where i do not need to spend money putting a fertilizer then i don't spend it or i need to put maybe lime to reduce acidity and so that the fertilizer is available nutrients available to the crop then i do that okay and my crop now is able to to really uh prime and drive and do better so those are some of the issues with smaller farmers yeah and generally farmers we are trying to inculcate yeah and ensure that we we are able to guide them through yeah you know one of the key things that people always say is there are many underlying factors that will affect such implementations such great ideas coming to fruition and really strategically thinking through the future as we've said we don't want to be reacting to things we want to be very strategic but you cannot negate the fact that there is policy that affects this and in your opinion how friendly is the policy framework right now as we speak and maybe the question would be in the continent and its friendliness towards sustainable and climate smart agriculture yeah i would say that the for climate smart agriculture yeah i would say the policies is there it's there albeit new of course it may not have gone to the permeated to every corner as you would want it yeah and also practitioners may have taken time to embrace that but also we we we always say that and i can always say that we are always looking for what can we do better even in terms of policy yeah for example if we understand there are issues that are going to help um smaller farmers so our graduate practitioners really do better yeah why not put policies that actually supports that and we have started by doing that with the national government has really done the the the kenya national climate smart agriculture strategy okay but then the domestication or the cascading of that to the counter levels to the various countries so the account is now put into context yeah within the country because you can imagine a county like uh ketui yeah or makuani that is in a dry area yeah may not do the same things as a county in the wet zones around mount kenya yeah cambo maybe they could be having slightly different ways of dealing with climate climate change yeah however it is recognizing that we need to do that at the county level as i said aggressive is the domestic county government yeah um and we right now i think there is a big push and in the right direction in terms of ensuring that we actually uh recognize that climate change is actually affecting they'll be able to produce food in this country and then the other thing of course is to push the private sector to embrace that and work with the private sector to say if i'm importing an equipment that is deemed to be answering the issue of climate change can the government be able to maybe uh make some concessions in terms of taxes right and that now that makes it more available or cheaper and farmers can actually be able to adopt it you're right you're talking about uh damn liners for example um and are we able to say well we're gonna um reduce maybe the tax on it make it affordable so that farmers can harvest water and use that water to actually grow crops yeah so there could be some subtle concessions in in india and there that we can actually try and embrace yeah if it's a other auxiliary services uh soil testing how do we make them available yeah how do they make them affordable uh to our farmers so that they make the right decisions in terms of what to plant the other thing i want to talk about is availability and reability reliability of weather information as i mentioned if i'm a farmer and right now right now we are back he'll be told that the rains for this season everyone are going to be depressed yeah so as a farmer now i'm thinking what am i supposed to do here all right how much of this rain am i going to get yeah when am i going to get it so that i make a decision on the crop to plant because now if i was thinking about planting maize maybe now i need to be having second thoughts something different something different yeah if it's about variety probably i would be looking at a variety that is a little bit not water intensive yeah or can withstand some some periods of dry weather or his short maturity period so that by the time the rains are come and go my crop is mature yeah so whether information that is reliable and timely provided because i need to get that information prior to planting the crops so i make a decision on what plant yeah i also need to know how long is it going to be this rain how much of it when it is is it going to start and stop so that kind of investing in such kind of mechanisms is really going to help us and then make that information accessible to farmers and usable i can provide information like now say the rain will be depressed but what does that mean what does it mean and there is a lot of variability between the areas it could be raining here by the time i get to cbd it's a completely different story that kind of variation need to be put into consideration so that we inform our farmers reliably and enable them to actually make the right decisions wow yeah wow maybe finally we can talk about your organization and how you are you know really encompassing the youth because we they're the majority yeah and we really want to see them embrace especially agriculture because there's a time there was a complaint these guys are not thinking about it at all yeah what are you doing yeah so um for sure and i know there's been a huge discussion around youth and agriculture and the conversation has been that our the average uh age of a farmer in kenya i think 59 or 60 years old i think up around there and the question has been how do we expect a six-year-old person to be the one to actually anchor food production well i think the the elasticity of person is experienced yeah they know a lot of them so they have a lot of knowledge yeah and i think they are rightly there but we are saying went into the younger generation to embrace food production yeah for the younger generation of course they want to embrace what is profitable what is of course again also they want quick wins you know um and for us we are focused on looking at leadership and governance um within the institutions that actually are dealing we are dealing with this we have the cooperatives and we what we have encouraged the cooperatives that we are working with is to embrace youth within their leadership and so that as decisions are being made youth are able to actually contribute and also shape the decisions that are being made yeah for example you would think about a youth in this country may not be having a title to a piece of land but we expect them to be farmers so probably they didn't talk to their father or their parents and get a small piece of land allocated to them just to do production yeah the other thing of course is um for them to look at opportunities within those values that i mentioned what what what uh job opportunities or income generating activities can they actually be able to do i talked about aggregation of commodities whether it is things like potato and actually we are focusing on four variety four four valencian we have potato we have beans we have sogam and we have green grams so in terms of if you're dealing with uh with a bulk of taker yeah that person would want to have not 20 kgs not a hundred yeah for probably they want to look for five times at above so when they come with that truck they can fill their truck it is economical it is efficient for them then can the youth actually be able to grab these opportunities okay do aggregation if you're talking about provision of spraying services for example protection and they use actually we are training them to actually now be the service providers we said we have this farmer who is 60 years old probably they may not be able to do all these things but the youth can offer the service okay so those are the opportunities you're identifying for the youth yeah to be able to now plug in okay and and provide these services and it's a win-win situation you provide the job for the youth yeah and your crop and your food is produced absolutely exactly absolutely yeah maybe the part in short that i would want you to do is uh looking straight with this camera yes talk to a youth and a farmer who's saying wow this is probably new to me or maybe i'm in the journey of embracing this or how can i engage with craft what would be your pattern shirt first of all to them straight on yeah yeah so um for me i would say um there are opportunities in the agricultural sector yeah and a lot of them within craft um we are working regionally in a number of about 15 counties and we're working also with the specific cooperatives and the small administrative enterprises yeah and for me is to say if we can identify some of the opportunities that can be plugged into um the the already ongoing work yeah for example in arakaniti and meru there's production of green grams and sogam yeah in vomit we are working on beans um in nandi in marquette we are focusing on potato mandara in akuro so there are quite a number of opportunities within those regions and i know as as far as busy actually uh sogam so there are quite a number of opportunities there yeah and if you're able to uh plug into the smes and cooperatives that you're already working in then you become a farmer that is linked to these entities then you have an opportunity to actually provide the service right you have the opportunity to actually um be a producer and be able to market your your your produce from from the market wow yeah thank you so much for coming and really opening up our eyes to smart agriculture climate smart by the way on my screen you can see cope 27 which will be held in egypt uh this coming month and you know ideally is to let you know that we will be having these conversations about this whole thing about climate sdgs esgs what are you doing going down to exactly what you can be doing like today we are focused on you the farmer so please make sure to tune in to engage with us and we really appreciate your company my name is maya shege and see you next time same time same place right here for another different conversation right here on viewing profits thank you [Music] [Music] you

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Id: y1bhpy4volc

Length: 34min 13sec (2053 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022