Green Dreams Organic Farming in East Africa

A few weeks ago I was honoured to visit a farm in Thika with Mr Pierluigi Maggioni. Thika is on the outskirts of Nairobi city, about an hours drive from the heartbeat of Kenya. This area has over the years developed into quite a prosperous agricultural zone, home to Kenya’s biggest pineapple plantation and processors, Del Montes. We drove into what appeared to be oblivion before reaching the Farm, nestled within arcades of trees, with fields of what appeared to be carefully manicured crops. The farm produces 3 main crops for export, Baby corn, French beans and Baby courgettes. Production is along conventional lines, following the european requirements Global Gap, HACCAP etc.

PierLuigi is the chief agronomist for the farm, Italian by birth but pretty Kenyan now after residing here for the past 20 years. His interests span beyond conventional methods of production and he has been at the forefront of intergrated pest management IPM of production locally. He is ever experimenting with new systems, a firm believer in trial and error and has more patience than I will ever have. Of late, he has been doing trials on ‘Zero Tillage’ on maize and has managed to produce three crops with outstanding results!

French beans are first grown using fertilizers, which after harvest are dried with the use of round up. The bean waste is left in the field and using a seeder, the maize is planted directly into the same area. The maize does not get any addittional fertiliser. After the baby corn harvest, the maize is chopped above ground level and beans are planted again , this time also with fertilizer. Considering this process to be one cycle, after three cycles, the soil is aerated from beneath using a special implement. As the photos will show, the top soil is covered with maize and bean mulch, which improves the soil condition and quality over time. What the photos will also show are the uniformity of the growing blocks.

The savings of this system are incredible. According to Pierluigis calculations, he uses 75% less diesel……….as he simply does not use his tractors as much……considering he was using 1000lts with the system before, this is an incredible saving. And suprisingly, he has reduced his pesticide use to ‘ZERO’ !! Yes, he does not use any pesticide on the crops as the pest damage is at negligible levels. Absolutely incredible!!! And equally as important, he has increased his yields by up to 70%!! This he says is due to better germination realised by this new planting method.

This is a huge eye opener for me. Why are the other exporters not doing the same? In a world of increasing fuel and fertilizer costs you would think it would be a high priority! Maybe they just don’t know, and sadly, perhaps the pressures of the export demands do not allow them to experiment too much.

Pierluigi is now experimenting with zero tillage on other crops. I’m fasinated and would love to see this approach adopted by more large scale exporters.

Technorati : fuel efficient, pesticide reduction, zero tillage

Mr Pierluigi Maggioni can be contacted on 0721121595