 |
| Editor’s
NOTE:
We serve a diverse audience of readers engaged
in regenerative, organic and sustainable agriculture
at many levels for many reasons. We want to hear
from you about the issues that are important to
your life and work, and your vision for agriculture
that builds a strong future.
We run selected comments from readers in this
space. Please tell us who you are, with name,
address and phone number for verification. Sending
correspondence to us conveys a right to us to
publish it as is, or in a form edited for length
and/or style. Opinions expressed in this space
do not necessarily represent the perspective of
The New Farm® or The Rodale Institute®.
If you have something important to say about
agriculture in a sustainable global food system,
please -- speak
to us.
NF
|
|
My most recent harvest was pretty fancy, since my family
for the first time traveled with me from the city of Nairobi,
where my pretty wife Gladys works as an administrator for
Agricultural Finance Corporation, a government parastatal
establishment.
They gave me a lot of encouragement, with my son, Owuor,
doing most of the pruning and helping with other labor and
my daughter, Jerono, helping her mother with kitchen work
in preparing real vegetarian meal, fresh from our garden.
My real happiness is the encouragement I have been getting
from the New Farm newsletter. I have prepared three volumes
in color to show friends and have so far succeeded in putting
two of my great friends to start their own small-scale vegetable
farms. They are not quite computer literate and may not be
able to communicate with you, as rural Kenya lacks such facilities
as e-mail centers.
I am looking forward to hiring a 50-acre plot and am negotiating
for land to enable my first trial on commercializing my cabbages
and Rhodes grass (Chloris Gayana). I would wish to
have 5 acres of traditional vegetables, most of which are
very medicinal, 15 acres of cabbages, 5 acres of cales (kale-type
vegetables) and 25 acres devoted to Rhodes grass seed.
Last season, I planted 10 acres from my own plot with Columbus
grass, and I am still waiting to secure its market, mostly
in Saudi Arabia. This seed is one of the best feeds for ostrich
breeders and farms. The proceeds from my already harvested
170, 50-kg bags will finance the 50 acres mentioned above.
I am happy to talk about this due to my enlightenment derived
from New Farm. I want to acknowledge all that I feel to have
borrowed from this great journal/newsletter.
I am looking forward to hearing more about CSA farmer John
and Aimee Good’s experience.
Faithfully,
John Owuor
Nairobi, Kenya |
