Project News volume 20 (2022-05-18)

Monitoring for In-field training was held!

In April 2022, the Project conducted the monitoring for In-field training at Kwale County. The In-field training is a training in which the extension officers convey the skills learnt in the FT-FaDDE training to the farmer group, and is held a total of nine times.

The project monitors two groups of In-field training per sub-county. The counterparts, who are the officers of the Ministry of Agriculture, split into two and visited one group each to ensure sufficient time for monitoring. The farmer group the Project visited this time is living in a village near the border with Tanzania. About an hour's drive from the Sub-County office, follow an unpaved road to reach the village where the group is located. By the time the project team arrived in the village, an extension officer already started to develop a Kale crop calendar with the farmers. The extension officer tied the drawing paper to the tree so that all the participating farmers could see the crop calendar. Then, create a crop calendar by asking each farmer when to sow, plant seedlings, fertilize, harvest, etc. so that the group will be able to sell Kale at the highest selling timing which obtained through market survey. Based on the created crop calendar, it was also discussed at what timing the extension officer would visit the group to teach members the necessary techniques.

After the In-filed training, the counterpart gave feedback to the extension officer. In addition to facilitating methods, good examples done by other extension officers were shared such as showing actual samples of qualified seeds and fertilizers and showing the situation when pest damage occurs using tablets for better understanding for farmers.

In the future, extension officers will carry out the rest of the In-field training based on the feedback. Also, sub-county agricultural officers will share the results of monitoring with extension officers in other groups to conduct In-field training throughout the county.