Blogs

PlantVillage has kicked off with digging soil bunds to regenerate waste land into agricultural use as part of a package of projects meant for communities living in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) region in Kenya.

The digging of soil bunds is one of a number of recently launched projects in the northern region of the country, with Isiolo, Marsabit, and Samburu acting as pilot counties.

Soil bunds are holes dug on sloped land to slow down rain runoff and give the soil the ability and time to absorb that water, thereby reducing soil degradation.

PlantVillage has partnered with the Malawi Plant Health Digital Service (MaDiPHS) to establish a digital plant health system aimed at predicting, identifying, monitoring, and managing pests and diseases.

The PlantVillage Nuru application has been selected as one of the monitoring tools used in the digital plant health system project, which will run for five years before it’s handed over to the Malawian government.

 

As a means of scaling up the cassava project and ensuring an adequate supply of clean cassava planting materials and rapid multiplication of the seed, PlantVillage Dream Team members in Kilifi County, Kenya, received a training on the Minisett technology at Kizingitini in Kilifi South sub-county in an exercise led by Ms. Gladys Mrira of ASDSP.

The PlantVillage team in Kenya, has constructed the first-ever underground capillary wick irrigation system at the Ririma borehole in Marsabit County (Northern Kenya) for growing vegetables: cabbages, kale, curly kale, Swiss chard, capsicum, beetroot, and sweet potato vines.

The project comes as the drought situation in Kenya escalates, with communities in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands (ASAL regions) experiencing the worst effects in years. We are now entering the 6th successive below normal rain season which has led to widescale stress in the community.

The vegetable project is a resilience revolution and a bold step towards regreening Marsabit and, in the process, combating drought and famine, contributing to the national goal of food security for its people, and empowering vulnerable families through income generation.

 

Seven young female scientists at the PlantVillage Parasitoids Rearing Lab at Alupe in Busia
County, Kenya, are notable for their remarkable work that is changing the game for farmers in
10 counties in Kenya in combating the problem of fall armyworms.

As the world marks International Women’s Day under the theme "Innovation and Technology for
Gender Equality," the lab at Alupe, supported by USAID, stands out as a good case study of a
modern biological crop pest control technology that has provided equal opportunities to 11
young scientists to explore their potential.

The lab, whose idea is modeled after PlantVillage’s advocacy for youth empowerment,
integrates into the whole idea of championing the cause of eradicating global hunger through
technology.

 

PlantVillage has partnered with the Ustadi Foundation in the Jobs Open for the Youth (JOY) project to create employment opportunities on a wage or through self-employment for rural youth in Kilifi County.

 

For Christiana Mokube, joining PlantVillage to work for the African community to find solutions to food insecurity is the best experience she’s ever had, and one of the things she’s marking as this Black History Month edition comes to an end.

At least 1,000 families living in Samburu, a county lying in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) region of northeastern Kenya, will benefit from a large-scale agroforestry project initiated by PlantVillage’s Dream Agro Consultancy Limited in partnership with the County Government of Samburu.

The tree nursery project follows up on numerous mechanisms laid down by PlantVillage’s Dream Team officers working to uplift families in the drought-stricken region.