Project News

Hello everyone. My name is Yamamoto, a JICA Volunteer. I am working on improving income of people in rural area (mainly farmers) in a community development position.

I participated in the training called the Joint Extension Staff & Farmers Dual (2) Gender (JEF2G) conducted by SHEP Biz project in Homa Bay, hoping to learn how local people proactively participate in the project and to receive tips for my own activities.

This training brought together agriculture officers, extension officers and farmer group representatives from Migori County, who would jointly learn and practise market survey, selecte crops to grow based on the information gained, and created action plans.

There were two things that impressed me when I participated in this training.

One was during market survey. We were divided into groups and assigned roles such as interviewer and timekeeper in advance, and prepared for the market survey. When we went to the market and started talking to the shopkeepers, I was surprised that the farmers started actively asking questions regardless of their roles. At the beginning, farmers semmed to be nervous because they had never conducted market survey before and did not expect the shopkeepers to give them a lot of answers, but with created opportunity, farmers became so proactive to get information.I felt that was one of the most interesting aspects of the project.

Another memorable moment was the discussion during the crop selection. The group that went to the market survey also discussed to select priority crops. Using worksheets, participants organised the information from the market survey and calculated together which crops we could choose, cultivation period, cost and profit, and then we voted to choose two crops to grow. Would they choose a crop with small profit but with experience of growing it and little risk, or would they choose a crop with large profit but with no experience of growing it, with a lot of time and effort and with a lot of risk? Each person shared what they thought, each voted with one, and in the end they chose one crop with high profit and one crop with low profit but solid. The farmers seemed to understand and implement the project's message of "grow to sell" as they selected crops after sorting through a variety of information, rather than selecting crops based on what they wanted to eat, what they had grown before or what they had seeds.

Through this training, I decided to create opportunities to do market survey together with local people, which I had done alone and shared information with them. I would be happy if they could understand the situation more realistically and become more proactive by seeing and hearing the market needs by themselves. I also found that workshops using worksheets are a useful tool for communicating ideas, as they make it easier to get the thoughts organised and focus on what I want them to take into account. I hope I can use it as one of the options when conducting workshops.

Market Survey

Participants organized information for crop selection