fallow land

My family recently acquired three acres of farmland near Kitengela town and it is my intention to put up a greenhouse on the land to produce peppers and other products for sale locally and for export. Having been a poet before, I am now about to make the transition onto farming and hence the title of my blog. This blog will serve the purpose of documenting my journey for the next two years as I dip myself into the world of farming.

The main reason behind my transition is a realization that there isn't much headroom for growth in the poetry industry and a recent major disappointment has only reinforced this. I am thus in search of a more productive path that is not office-related. We have been rearing chicken and I have been the defacto caretaker of those fowls and this will be just an extension of that farming spirit.

The farm is part of a larger portion owned by a family friend and he has built a temporary house on the farm and several Servants' Quarters where he used to house his workers. Did I forget to mention that he used to farm there and has now ceased to do so. Part of the reason why he quit farming is that he suffered major losses for two seasons and was unable to recover from the crop failure. In light of this, I intend to make arrangements for a farming insurance cover to take care of the risks involved and not suffer the same fate.

As part of the farming expedition, I will move into one of the SQ's on site and through that keep a close eye on the activities going on in the farm. My plan is to set up a greenhouse and irrigate with the water on the farm from an earlier existing borehole. To this end, I am about to make contact with a farm solutions provider Amiran Kenya who have special farm kits for small to medium scale farmers. I also talked to another family friend about the challenges he had faced when he was running a greenhouse in his backyard. Among the prominent ones were the sensitivity of the crops given that the greenhouse creates a micro-climate and thus the need to protect that micro-climate from external factors. He cited the fact that at one point he woke up to find the tomatoes he was farming burnt by a disease which he suspects one of the workers brought into the greenhouse the day earlier. The crops are that sensitive. Amiran Kenya however provides special gear for the farmer which is disinfected and worn over regular clothes to minimize the transfer of diseases from the outside world into the greenhouse. In fact, Amiran have a whole support network to ensure that the farmer not only gets a greenhouse but also the appropriate seeds, fertilizers and pesticides as well as market for their produce. This has really encouraged me given that I have no prior training or experience in commercial farming. Their monthly visits to the farm will also be helpful in monitoring the greenhouse and the crops to make sure that everything is going according to plan. To this end, I feel that I am getting into farming with the right people, tools and resources to ensure a bumper harvest and money in the bank. I look forward to a journey of discovery and abundant growth. Amen