Improving farm practices and “Passing on the Gift”

Note: We’ve been so busy over the past several days, it’s been challenging to keep up with our posts here. So, we’ll try to catch up over the next couple of days!

Susan generously shared a cup of Uji to show her appreciation to all of us who visited her farm!   Uji, is a Kenyan Fermented Porridge made with dried maize, millet and sorghum that is mixed with water and left to ferment for a few days before cooking.

During our time working with Heifer International, we met several farmers who have demonstrated the profound impact Heifer made in their lives.

One of those farmers was Susan. She started with one cow and now has four cows! We  learned about how Heifer helped her to improve her farm through improved animal care as well as improved farming practice to have more, higher quality fodder available to feed her cows.  She was very proud to demonstrate her fodder chopper and even taught us how to chop maize, napier grass and other plant material into smaller particles. This enables her cows to consumer more fodder and increase the digestibility of that feed, both of which lead to improved milk production.

Susan taught us how she uses this fodder cutter to chop her maize (corn), Napier Grass and other fodder into small pieces to improve consumption, digestion and milk production.

Her four cows are producing 65 liters per day. This is about 16 liters or 36 pounds per cow per day.

Her family consumers 1 liter per day and she feeds 4 liters to young calves, leaving 60 liters per day to sell at about 38 Kenyan Shillings (about 38¢) per liter. Total milk sales are 68,400 KSH  (about $684 USD) per month!

While this is still significantly below the average production per cow in the United States, she is doing better than many other farmers and is focused on continual improvement for her own farm as well as with her  entire community of farmers.

I shared insights on determining the best time to harvest this yellow maize demonstration plot based on the”milk line” in the maize kernels.

In fact, Susan serves as a Heifer International “Peer Farmer Trainer” and leads a discussion group of 25 other neighboring farmers. First learning from Extension and Heifer farmer advisers, she then shares with other farmers is  a great example of how Heifer International participants “Pass on the Gift” of knowledge to others. This helps improve the ability of all farmers in a community to improve animal care and productivity, which leads to a better livelihoods for each farmer and more milk being available for all people living in the communities where Heifer International is working to over come hunger and poverty!

As Susan has learned from Heifer over the past several years, her farm has grown from one cow to four cows, and she now “Passes on the Gift” of knowledge to other farmers in her area.