The Future - of Agriculture - WinterSchool Projects and a Multi-cultural Eat-in
(Baraka Agricoltural College, Molo, Kenya- 26/01/2020, Ann S. and Pia M.) Today is all about the future. The team starts with lessons at 9 o’clock following up the day before session and envisioning the future of the projects.
Valentina Gritti, from SFYN, gives an insight on brainstorming and all the groups start thinking (more or less) feasible solutions of the projects. After this exercise every group needs to take the hard decision of choosing one main idea to follow for the next days. The presentation of one PowerPoint slide per group is scheduled for the class after lunch.
Following the coffee break there is a lecture about “sustainable Agriculture: the future of agriculture” – held by Mr. Wilhelm N. Keyah, who is a professor at the Baraka Agricultural College. He is a specialist for rural development and was working as an extension officer before joining the college. Mr. Keyah starts with asking the team questions about their worries of future developments in the agricultural sector and encourages a discussion among the participants. Climate change, chemicals and the lack of knowledge transfer are along the many notions of worries that are expressed by the students.
Then Mr. Keyah starts giving an insight into the current situation of agriculture in Europe and Africa. “In Europe the food is in the store and just by having money you can purchase it – that is different in Africa” states the lecturer. A main differences due to the lack of adequate investment into infrastructure and inadequate policies to support small scale farmers in Africa and in fact, today the 75% of Africa agricultural production is still taking place on small scale farms.
At the end of the session the team of the members of the WinterSchool is supposed to reflect on the lecture and point out lessons that have been learned as well as recommendations for the future of agriculture.
After a short lunch break the participant head back to the lecture hall and introduce the main ideas for the four respective groups. In the following part the different projects, that the groups are working on are introduced:
- Project one deals with small scale tea farmers, which face the challenge being dependent on big private national and international companies. Thus the tea farmers just get around 1% of the benefit made by tea production. As the production of tea was introduced by the British colonial government around 1903 there is no long standing tradition for farmers to use their own tea for consumption. Addressing these problems the “tea group” wants to put its focus on a button-up approach with the aim of creating a cooperative among the tea farmers that gives them a better bargaining position as well as transferring knowledge on small scale tea processing for their own household needs.
- The second group deals with the traditional honey production of the “Ogiek Community” that the winterschool team has visited in the previous days. The group aims at implementing a new agricultural synergic model with indigenous plants to involve women and youth in the community as well as creating another source of income.
- The third group is dealing with the Community of “Borana” – based in northern Kenya (unfortunately too far away to be visited within this WinterSchool) and is affected by challenges on water access, education and employment and market access. The group came up with the idea to introduce an “entrepreneurial skills lab” to foster the communities capabilities to solve the problems by themselves.
- The fourth group working on the “Maasai Red Sheep Community ” deals with the reimplementation of this breed. They propose to introduce an app to facilitate the interaction of the people that work with the red Maasai sheep to help in the process of value adding and preserving the indigenous breed.
Following the short first pitches of the project the groups start working and creating story boards to provide additional details about their chosen topics, to be presented on the next day.
In the evening another highlight is waiting for the Winter School Team and also all other students of Baraka Agricultural College: a multi-cultural Eat-in.
The students from Italy introduced pasta al forno and focaccia to their fellow African students while a Zwetschgen Datschi (a traditional plum cake) was baked by the German students. The expressions that one could observe during the tasting of the mostly unknown dishes caused many laughters.
The experience was great for everyone not only because of the delicious food but also because it was a great opportunity to get to know the other students from Baraka College and learn more about their different traditions. The evening ended with dancing in the kitchen and we can tell: Chakula ni tamu sana! (The food is very delicious!)
Then Mr. Keyah starts giving an insight into the current situation of agriculture in Europe and Africa. “In Europe the food is in the store and just by having money you can purchase it – that is different in Africa” states the lecturer. A main differences due to the lack of adequate investment into infrastructure and inadequate policies to support small scale farmers in Africa and in fact, today the 75% of Africa agricultural production is still taking place on small scale farms.
At the end of the session the team of the members of the WinterSchool is supposed to reflect on the lecture and point out lessons that have been learned as well as recommendations for the future of agriculture.
After a short lunch break the participant head back to the lecture hall and introduce the main ideas for the four respective groups. In the following part the different projects, that the groups are working on are introduced:
- Project one deals with small scale tea farmers, which face the challenge being dependent on big private national and international companies. Thus the tea farmers just get around 1% of the benefit made by tea production. As the production of tea was introduced by the British colonial government around 1903 there is no long standing tradition for farmers to use their own tea for consumption. Addressing these problems the “tea group” wants to put its focus on a button-up approach with the aim of creating a cooperative among the tea farmers that gives them a better bargaining position as well as transferring knowledge on small scale tea processing for their own household needs.
- The second group deals with the traditional honey production of the “Ogiek Community” that the winterschool team has visited in the previous days. The group aims at implementing a new agricultural synergic model with indigenous plants to involve women and youth in the community as well as creating another source of income.
- The third group is dealing with the Community of “Borana” – based in northern Kenya (unfortunately too far away to be visited within this WinterSchool) and is affected by challenges on water access, education and employment and market access. The group came up with the idea to introduce an “entrepreneurial skills lab” to foster the communities capabilities to solve the problems by themselves.
- The fourth group working on the “Maasai Red Sheep Community ” deals with the reimplementation of this breed. They propose to introduce an app to facilitate the interaction of the people that work with the red Maasai sheep to help in the process of value adding and preserving the indigenous breed.
Following the short first pitches of the project the groups start working and creating story boards to provide additional details about their chosen topics, to be presented on the next day.
In the evening another highlight is waiting for the Winter School Team and also all other students of Baraka Agricultural College: a multi-cultural Eat-in.
Every community or country is cooking its own traditional food. Thus the Kikuyu community prepared Mokimu – smashed potatoe, local herbs and corn. Students of the Luhya community were preparing local chicken and brown Ugali (a mix of millet and corn), while the Kisii community was cooking Matoke (Plantane) and beef stew in a traditional way. Local vegetables like Managu (Night Shade) were prepared according to the tradition of the Kamba community and the students of the Luo community cooked Omen, which is a small local fish, served with brown Ugali. The Kalenjin community prepared brown Ugali as well and served it with local vegetables.
The students from Italy introduced pasta al forno and focaccia to their fellow African students while a Zwetschgen Datschi (a traditional plum cake) was baked by the German students. The expressions that one could observe during the tasting of the mostly unknown dishes caused many laughters.
The experience was great for everyone not only because of the delicious food but also because it was a great opportunity to get to know the other students from Baraka College and learn more about their different traditions. The evening ended with dancing in the kitchen and we can tell: Chakula ni tamu sana! (The food is very delicious!)
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