My rice grows without flood water

Rose Imbega, a farmer at Ndalu in Tongaren, Bungoma County removes weeds from a rice crop, Anerica variety, at her farm on August 20, 2014. PHOTO | JARED NYATAYA | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Her orchard of 20 mango trees each produce about 300 huge fruits annually. Each fruit sells at Sh10 average. She maintains them by spraying with pesticides and applying manure regularly. She sells to retail traders who come to her farm.
  • But it is Anarica, a variety of upland rice, which has made Rose’s farm unique. She is one of the few farmers in Trans Nzoia and Bungoma who have tried out this rice, which doesn’t need flood water to grow. It is grown like maize in what is known as aerobic rice production.
  • Rice blast and weeds are among challenges farmers growing the rice face.

The parcels of land on the left and right side of the earth road in Kiminini, 18km from Kitale town in Bungoma County teem with different crops.

Seeds of Gold team is here to visit Rose Imbega’s farm. It is not hard to track her, as we find several villagers who willingly take us to her farm.
It has mangoes, millet, sorghum, rice, among many other crops, and livestock, which made the farm be singled out by Bungoma West agriculture officers for training recently.

“Nothing has given me greater joy than this farm. I have been receiving many visitors. Recently I hosted the Bungoma Senator Moses Wetang’ula and Tongaren MP David Eseli and hundreds of farmers.”

Rose, a mother of six, says that she inherited the three-acre farm from her father, who also taught her farming, but has since bought another seven. “It was in 2004 that I began farming as a business. Before this, I was doing it for subsistence.”

She personally manages the farm to ensure maximum yields.

The level of diversification indeed needs all her attention. She has grown pineapples on 0.2 acres, mangoes and oranges (0.6 acres), sorghum (0.4), sweet potatoes (0.3), bananas (0.5), Boma Rhodes (0.5), groundnuts (0.3), green grams (0.3) and soya beans and maize (four acres).

She also keeps four cows under the zero grazing system and 80 kienyeji chicken. All of these fetches her a net profit of more than Sh400,000 annually, excluding maize.

ORCHARD OF 20 MANGO TREES

Her orchard of 20 mango trees each produce about 300 huge fruits annually. Each fruit sells at Sh10 average. She maintains them by spraying with pesticides and applying manure regularly. She sells to retail traders who come to her farm.

“I have 100 orange plants that I planted a year ago. I bought certified seedling scions from Eldoret, then grafted with local ones.”

She planted millet and sorghum in March. “I buy certified seeds from Kenya Seed at Sh200 per kilo. This covers 0.1 acres. From the 0.4 acres, I get up to two bags of millet and two bags of sorghum,” she says adding that millet and sorghum are not labour intensive. After a proper seedbed preparation and planting, one will only need to weed and top dress. During extreme cold temperature, they should be sprayed.

Rose says early land preparation is key to a bumper harvest. “This enables the soil to aerate properly. During this time, weeds are completely wiped out through constant application of herbicides,” says the member of the Nairobi International Show, who has travelled widely after resigning as a secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture to join the NGO world.

Rose says she has a skilled farm manager, her son Tony and two workers whom she remunerates handsomely. All wastes from cows and chicken are utilised in the crops farm. 

“My cows are healthy because they get balanced diet from sweet potato vines, bean, banana leaves, stems from millet and sorghum. I don’t incur expenses on feeds. These are the benefits one gets from being a mixed farmer, nothing goes to waste.”

DOESNT NEED FLOOD WATER

But it is Anarica, a variety of upland rice, which has made Rose’s farm unique. She is one of the few farmers in Trans Nzoia and Bungoma who have tried out this rice, which doesn’t need flood water to grow. It is grown like maize in what is known as aerobic rice production.

This method of rice production has gained popularity in India and Southeast Asia.

“I was first introduced to this rice by Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), an NGO in Kitale. On their routine outreach, they visited my farm and were impressed by my work. They briefed me on this new variety of rice.”

After a number of subsequent visits during which the officers were really preaching to the already confessed, Rose planted the variety in March using farm yard manure. 

“Anarica likes level fields, but in sloppy areas, permanent ground covers like shrubs or hedgerows trees can be introduced,” she says adding that intercropping with leguminous plants like beans helps in bringing in nitrogen.

She intercropped the rice with beans, which she has since harvested.

She sprayed with herbicides at three weeks, repeating it after one month.

“I prefer manure which I cheaply obtain from my cows and chicken.” Rose’s rice is now yellowing and she expects to harvest next month. Patrick Shiundu, the CSA coordinator, says the all-season rice clone was developed by Kenya Seed Company. 

“It is suitable where maize is grown, making it an alternative to curb food insecurity because it can be grown anywhere where rainfall is average,” he says, adding it has been successfully tested in Busia, Mumias, Bungoma and Trans Nzoia.

“An acre yields between eight and 12 90kg bags. After harvest, Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari), Kitale, provides threshing machines.”
Shiundu says some farmers use artificial fertiliser, which is not ideal because this feeds the plant, not the soil. Manure is the best.

Rice blast and weeds are among challenges farmers growing the rice face.