Project News

Organizer's workshop for agriculture officers of 2nd batch counties was held!

In preparation for the commencement of project activities in the 2nd batch counties, following the sensitization for county leaders in April (please refer to Project News Volume 21), the organizer's workshop was held in May 2022. Around 30 people participated in the workshop, including the County Director on Agriculture (CDA) and the Sub County Agriculture Officer (SCAO) from 5 counties.

Organizer's workshop is a four-day program that includes an overview of each activity of the SHEP Approach, how to select target farmer groups, and a visit to the SHEP farmer group. The selection of the target farmer groups is quite important and the selection criteria of target farmer groups and its reasons are explained, such as being an existing group (not forming a new group), farmers have experiences of selling horticultural crops before, and about 20 to 50 group membership, etc. The Project has been working for but is further promoting the affirmative action for the 2nd batch. The Project requested counties to select at least 1 women group, 1 youth group, 1 disability group and 1 group of socially vulnerable people such as widows from each county. We asked the county to select at least one group at a time. The Project will target 10 farmer groups from 2 sub counties per county and in total, 100 farmer groups for the entire 2nd batch 10 counties.

During the farmer visit on the 3rd day of the workshop, farmers shared their success story that the group made a profit by growing Tomatoes and Kales, and then expanded the business to grow fruits such as Mango, Banana and Avocado, and also sell livestock such as cows and goats, and further profited. On the final day of the workshop, participants took a SHEP understanding test created with Google Form, and participants used the tablets provided during the workshop to answer the test. The test results were as high as 80 points or more on average, indicating that the participants understood the basic concept and theory of SHEP well.

The project will confirm the target farmer groups selected by counties and conduct sensitization for extension officers in charge of the selected farmer groups!

Organizer's training

SHEP farmer group visit