Happy New Year! Let’s start off by wishing each and everyone a prosperous 2014 and a year full of positive actions and results.  Despite the many challenges and disruptions, 2013 was a great year and without it we wouldn’t be in 2014. We thank all our clients, supporters, volunteers, partners and staff for the progress and miles we have attained so far. In partnership with schools and local communities, we have been actively involved in creating demo farms that will be producing certified fruit seedlings and serve as centres of learning where community members will purchase their seedlings and learn more about horticulture especially orchard development and management. So far, our pilot project at Kariobangi primary school is on track and will be offering training in the near future. Plans are underway for us to partner with institutions that will ensure relevant and high quality practical training is offered.

 We are still very much focused in our push to encourage guys to plant fruit trees either by investing in fruit farming or planting fruits in their home gardens and landscapes for personal consumption. Our role is to ensure farmers and home gardeners get quality seedlings from certified sources and all the necessary information on how to plant and take care of their plants to ensure quality yields that meet health and market standards. High quality grafted seedlings leads to increased production that improves the health of families not only by providing a higher nutrition diet, but also by generating profits from surplus. Fruit production and consumption is low in East Africa and Africa at large. We want to empower farmers’ especially small-scale farmers who are the majority by encouraging them to embrace sustainable farming practices and diversify into fruit farming as they adopt agro forestry.

One of our main objectives is to deepen awareness on the importance and adoption of agribusiness among the youth. We are focusing on primary and secondary schools to initiate orchard development and management. There is need for mental migration among the youth who regard agriculture as a poor man’s activity. The youth should be encouraged to venture into agriculture not as something that is cool but as an economic activity that has potential to create wealth and as an obligation to feed the world. From our practical experiences, agriculture isn’t cool; it requires self-drive, hard work and dedication for one to realize its coolness. There are platforms and initiatives that assist the youth who are willing to venture in agribusiness and it’s up to the youths to rise to the occasion and take advantage of these platforms that include ;  Mkulima Young, Young Professionals in Agricultural Research for Development Youth Agro-Environment Initiative, Agri-Hub Kenya  just to mention a few.

The impact of our work will be greater if we partner and collaborate with organizations and individuals who participate in activities that are similar or relate to what we are doing. This will create synergy among the different players and stakeholders and avoid duplicating efforts leading to greater impacts using little resources. Most of our projects are designed as open-ended strategies that call for the refinement of the strategy as we proceed with implementation. This makes us open to suggestions, advice and any technical assistance that may come our way. The demo farm at kariobangi North primary School is almost one year old, we have planted different varieties of fruits mixed with cassava, sugarcane and indigenous vegetables. We promote organic farming, agro forestry, permaculture and conservation agriculture. In case you are in Nairobi feel free to pay a visit to the demo farm and purchase fruit seedlings as you learn more on fruit farming. Feel free to give us a call on +254714118794 or drop us a mail at admin@plantafruit.org for more info. Once again we wish you all a prosperous year, let’s keep it real in 2014 and pray the Almighty will bless us with strength and wisdom and crown our efforts with success.