LEAF IN KENYA

LEAF back in Kenya for more training with another FRICH producer group

What is a LEAF farmer? “Someone who doesn’t kill snakes!” This was one of the answers from a Kenyan delegate on the latest LEAF training in Africa.LEAF Marque Technical Manager, Anthony Goggin and Mary Bosley from Waitrose returned to Kenya in July to help train another producer group for the FRICH project and also to review progress on training done at the beginning of the year. This project will improve their prosperity and sustainability through the UK market opportunity provided by Waitrose as well as improve and enhance the Kenyan environment and provide agronomic and management skills for the farmers.

When asked how the FRICH project could help the community, farming leader Anthony Kinyua said, “ Currently less than 25% of Buuri children can attend school, we want this to be 100% “.

The objectives of the training were to:
Familiarise the delegates with LEAF and sustainable farming principles and practices; encourage them through the adoption of Integrated Farm Management (IFM) to produce export quality crops to the LEAF Marque Standard. There was some excellent group interaction and discussions as well as a farm walk to see the training theory in action. Interactive training films that have been developed by WRENmedia using Ghanaian and Kenyan farmers were successfully used to communicate the LEAF IFM principles.

Jonathan Gichunge was reflective at the end of the course, “Yesterday we heard about making plans, today we learnt how to make plans. I am going to start straight away and I can do it properly. It will help me to measure my progress and reach my goals and objectives “.
The plan is to return to Kenya next year to see how the groups have progressed to become LEAF Marque certified.

Further information about the FRICH project can be found here
www.frich.co.uk/html/waitrose.html