We farm as a group for a bumper harvest

Kenya: Women chamas are the in thing. Forget the ones where mothers meet to eat mandazi and gossip, there are some transforming ordinary lives. At the heart of Saema village in Nyakach, Kisumu County is one such progressive group.

Tazama Mbele Women Group headed by Pamella Adhiambo has a core agenda of empowering members to be food secure through group farming.

Pull resources

“We started this chama ten years ago as a merry-go-round, but in 2012, an organisation gave us a brilliant idea. They told us how we can pull our energies and resources to help each other with agri-business. You see all the ten of us have farms but we rarely do anything constructive in it because of factors like labour and knowledge on best practice,” Adhiambo explains.

The group, which comprises members from different professions, work on a rotational basis where they move into each member’s farm and help with planting, harvesting and marketing whatever produce one has chosen to grow.

“We have a timetable where each member’s farm is given priority. Since we plant almost the same crops— maize and beans— we ensure we work in each member’s farm every planting season,” she says.

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Team spirit

To the team, team work is everything.

“As Tazama we do everything together. We help each member till her land, plant the crops, weed, spray if neccesary and even harvesting. We collect money to buy fertiliser and seeds. We realised many people neglect their farms because they have no one to farm, they have no money to buy produce and other farming requirements like seeds, fertiliser and farming tools. But when we are a team we can contribute to meet such needs,” says Adhiambo.

For this story, Smart Harvest concentrated on Adhiambo as the case study to see the success of the initiative.

The collective production has seen Adhiambo mint maximum returns from her farm.

The joint production also gives her an opportunity to share ideas and jointly monitor the growth progress of her crops.

“Thanks to this team spirit, I can now harvest over 16 sacks of maize from my farm on a good season. Previously, I was doing less than two sacks on the same piece of land,” she says.

“This year I harvested seven sacks thanks to collective help from other members,” Adhiambo shares.

Farmers United, the organisation that sold the collective farming idea to the group gives the farmers seeds and fertiliser at subsidised prices.

Crop rotation

 Farmers United has trained the women on modern farming methods and providing viable seeds and fertiliser.

According to Margret Omwago, another member of the group, farmers had previously been receiving low yields that could not even be enough to feed their families.

“We have now learnt crop rotation, soil testing, irrigation and other practices, which we realised we were not previously doing right,” says Omwango.