A new strategy for Kataru Concepts is to focus on growing communities in the SAWBO AFRICA FARMERS WhatsApp network through increasing the scaling up of SAWBO animation videos accessed by the SAWBO App within those communities. The Muhaka community became an automatic beneficiary of this new strategy. The community, found in Kwale County of the coast region, is made up of neighbors who speak Chidigo, Duruma, and Chonyi variants of the Mijikenda language.
A large portion of Kwale County is classified as Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL), but the Muhaka community occupies one of the few areas that receives sufficient rainfall to support farming with two seasons a year. There is “Mwaka” which means long rains and “Vuli” which stands for short rains.
Unlike most families in the ASAL areas who practice cattle herding and endure drought, the Muhaka community is blessed to have arable and good soils. This enables the community to produce cassava, groundnuts, Bambara nuts, cowpea, indigenous vegetables such as mchicha (amaranth or pigweed), jute mallow, black nightshade (mnavu), and bitter lettuce that grows wild.
From left to right: members of the Muhaka Community in Kwale county during a recent training session held at one of the farmer’s home. The community was trained on how to access, download, watch, and share SAWBO animation videos. Picture credit: Kataru Concepts
Other crops the community cultivates are bananas also known as migomba, pineapples, mangoes, oranges, lemons, passion fruit, capsicum, okra, tomatoes, onions, and sweet potato. Most families have sunk boreholes for fresh water supply which they use for domestic purposes and to irrigate farms. The Kwale county government has also invested in dams and community boreholes to increase the accessibility to water.
Farmer extension visits
Part of our six point agenda to increase SAWBO content uptake in these communities that’s proving to be instrumental in our growth is farmer extension visits. This happens where we’ve had a previous relation with a group or community, and trained them on how to access, download and use animation videos.
Extension visits help our team observe farmers at work. We get to see how a community implements what they learned from the videos they’ve been sharing, watching and discussing on their WhatsApp groups.
Top left: The lead trainer of the coast region, Tao Mbeyu Dzombo demonstrates on how to make a root bed for timely planting materials. Top right: Checking out a sweet potato farm. Bottom left: A farmer demonstrates how to cover groundnuts with soil for more yields. Bottom right: Farmers checking the performance of a groundnut crop and discussing good agricultural practices in the SAWBO animation on the same. Picture credit: Kataru Concepts
Our visits always start from the farm where we check what video concepts have been used, procedures that might have been skipped by a farmer, and any corrections and recommendations. An extension visit also provides an opportunity to discuss additional useful animations that could help improve yields.
It is during extension visits that we encounter the actual effect of SAWBO video animations on communities. Some farmers choose to apply everything they learn, while others select a few techniques and procedures to use depending on the immediate need.
A good example is the raised beds technique. Many farmers don’t have enough crop residue to make them. Therefore, they choose to apply double digging, raise their beds, then apply compost and other fertilizers which still gives them better yields.
During an extension visit on October 5th, 2024, Kataru Concepts team hosted farmers on our demonstration farm at Kinangunangu. We took them through a number of demonstration plots with crops planted using knowledge learned from the animation videos. These included cassava, groundnuts, sweet potato, bananas, and nappier grass.
We plan to continue visiting farmers and encouraging them to share SAWBO content within their communities. Its our hope that in two seasons, entire villages will be sharing animation videos and discussing their content whenever they think of farming. We also hope to increase the use of SAWBO content is the managing of basic health challenges that cause diseases and infections.
