Farmers Helping Farmers has received further funding from the Canadian International Development Agency to continue its work in east Africa. The recently approved project involves the economic development of two of the groups that the Island organization has been working with in Kenya over the past several years.
The Minister for International Cooperation, Susan Whalen, yesterday announced a new policy for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) on Expanding opportunities through private sector development of developing countries. The Farmers Helping Farmers project is profiled on the CIDA Web site as an example of a project that promotes self-reliance in east Africa.
The Muchui Women's Group in Kenya, which has received 60 water tanks from generous Island donations, will now be starting tree seedling nurseries using a small portion of the water from their tanks. The trees will be sold for cash, needed by these farm families, in addition to being planted locally to provide food, lumber, shelter and firewood. Farmers Helping Farmers will assist them with the training and start-up costs associated with the tree seedlings.
The project that was recently recognized by CIDA for its success and garnered the Farmers Helping Farmers organization with a national award for its volunteer activities in international development is also receiving more assistance. The Wakulima Self-Help Group Dairy consists of 3,500 farmers with one or two cows each. They work cooperatively to ship their milk to a plant where it is cooled and sold for further processing in the capital city, Nairobi, Kenya. The milk is cooled by a milk cooling tank purchased by Farmers Helping Farmers, which has enabled the farmers to dramatically increase the value and amount of milk they sell.
When the Islanders visited this group in January, 2002, they were impressed by its business and administration. The group was well-organized and had the potential to achieve greater goals if given the opportunity. The Islanders identified that they needed assistance in credit, because the interest rate of 25 percent made it difficult to improve their livestock or farming operation. They also required better access to veterinary services, better quality control for their milk, higher productivity from their cows, and assistance in product development.
The Farmers Helping Farmers' new project addresses all these issues. The new funding will help these farmers set up a credit system called SACCO, with an interest rate of 10 percent. It is also lining up specialists to send to the Kenyan community to work with them in improving production and product development. The Island organization is pleased to be partnering with the local Atlantic Veterinary College (AVC) to begin the initial phase of this three-year project. Three veterinary students going into their last year of Veterinary Medicine have been selected to visit Kenya for three weeks as part of their final year of education. The students will have an opportunity to learn about international agriculture and veterinary medicine while helping to diagnose problems in their dairy cattle and give the African dairy farmers some technical assistance with regards to herd health management.
The students will be traveling with a supervisor from the Department of Health Management at the AVC, who has previous experience in international veterinary medicine. This opportunity will be available to the students for the next three years and will provide some continuity in monitoring the progress of dairy cattle management in this area. In exchange, Wakulima's veterinarian will also come to Prince Edward Island to learn about dairy cattle management in Canada.