Kanhiu found a way to reduce the cost of manual labour on his farm by putting together a machine using scrap metal he sourced from local dealers.
It is mid-morning at Mohonia village in Laikipa West. On entering Peter Kahiu’s home, you would easily mistake it for a garage, or that of a person who operates a garage.
Behind his store are tens of agricultural machines and pieces of metal. Kahiu is loading the pieces of metal onto a small tractor. He then uses a rope to start his petrol-powered machine. Basically, this tractor is a two-wheeler engine attached to a metal carrier on which he loads his other ‘machineries’ Kahiu drives through a longer route to his farm, while his wife Millicent Wangui, takes us through a short-cut.
As we walk through, Millicent happily tells us how easy her farming life has become because she no longer has to dig, plant and weed manually. “I just rest at home looking after my poultry and cleaning my house as most of my farm work is taken care of,” says a smiling Millicent.
At the edge of her vast farm, is some space that has scattered drying bean crop. This space, she explains, was set aside for the purpose of demonstrating her husband’s innovative machinery farming.
Kahiu has arrived already. He off-loads his machineries from the carrier. He then detaches the carrier from the two-wheeled tractor and drives it to the demonstration farm.
“Here, we practice conservation agriculture, whose first step is ripping,” says Kahiu, as he fixes a ripper to the back of the two-wheeled tractor.
The ripper is made of two sharp steel metals, bent at around 45-60 degrees, that resemble the teeth of a snake. Each of the ‘teeth’ should dig the ground at about eight inches in order to ripple the hard ground, a process that should be done after every two years, according to Kahiu.
“I made the ripper using pieces of metal that I bought from a scrap metal dealer,” says Kahiu, adding that he had to try twice and succeeded on the third attempt. After he is done with ripping, Kahiu removes the ripper and replaces it with a Subsoiler, which is a machine he invented to make fallows in the farm before planting.
The subsoil is made of two heavy metal blades that are joined together at a sharp edge, while the blades are like curved wings. The sharp edge, Kahiu explains, that digs the fallows, while the ‘wings’ push soil away from the blades. Like in making the ripper, Kahiu got the raw materials from scrap metal dealers, and attempted several times before succeeding.
The next step is disconnecting the sub-soiler and connecting the planter. The planter has two containers; one for seeds and another one for distributing fertilizer. At the back of the planter, is a wheel that covers the seeds with soil. Although he has barely attended any engineering or agricultural machinery course, Kahiu’s innovation journey was triggered by need to ease farm work as well as reduce cost of production.
He would hire tractors for tilling and harrowing his five-acre piece of land. For tilling, he would be charged Sh3,000 per acre, while he paid Sh1,500 per acre for harrowing. Further, he would spend at least Sh6,400 to pay casuals whom he would hire to plant.
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“Worse still is that sometime the casual workers would charge higher when they realized how desperate I was for their services,” says Kahiu The high cost of labour would dent his profit margin. At some point, he bought two oxen which he used to plough. But they were badly affected by drought, causing them to lack energy to plough.
In 1999, after fattening the oxen, he bought the two-wheeled tractor at a cost of Sh60,000. It is this tractor that he still uses to power the ripper and the sub-soiler, both his 100 percent innovations. In 2016, he attended a farmers field day organized by the UN – Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and Laikipia County Department of Agriculture. During the meeting, he talked about his innovation and how it has helped him ease labour and reduce on cost of production.
“After sharing my experience, the FAO and County Agriculture Officers promised to award me with a planter, which they later delivered,” recalls Kahiu. However, he was required to buy some oxen as the planter was originally made to be pulled by them. “I spent almost one year modifying it until it worked with my two-wheeled tractor, to the amazement of those who had awarded it to me,” he says
Initially, he was looking for a solution for his family but he ended up getting machineries that are useful to his neighbours too. This year alone, he prepares 60 acres, the highest he has ever done. He charges Sh1,500 per acre for ripping and an equal amount for planting.
An innovative Kahiu has also made shallow weeders that are easy to use. A ‘shallow weeder’, which has a wooden handle measuring about 1.5 meters and a steel blade, goes for Sh300. A ‘push weeder’ small wheel, a steel blade and a metallic pipe handle, works by pushing the blade under weeds to uproot them and goes for Sh1,000.
In future, Kahiu hopes to increase his number of two-wheeled tractors to at least three, to enable him able to serve more farmers especially during planting season when demand is high. He has been attending several innovation shows in Nanyuki, Nyeri and Nairobi and hopes to showcase his technologies internationally.According to experts, stakeholders in the agriculture sector must become innovative in order to promote conservational farming.
Moses Njagi, a Conservation Agriculture Expert at FAO, says using a ripper enhances softening of the hard pan. This way, he adds, water and roots penetrate deep into the ground, thus enhancing healthy crop and boosting productivity.
“Besides, by shallow weeding, the weeds are left on the land, thus acting as mulching to retain soil moisture,” says Njagi. While many farmers use oxen for tilling, Njagi notes, machineries would be better as animals are hard to maintain especially in dry areas.
He says such innovative farmers as Kahiu should be supported through education and support by linking them to potential clients of their products.
Besides, by shallow weeding, the weeds are left on the land, thus acting as mulching to retain soil moisture. While many farmers use oxen for tilling machineries would be better as animals are hard to maintain especially in dry areas