Horticultural News January - February issue

By nGOBILO naKITarE and
CaTHErInE rIunGu
Her in-depth
knowledge
of agriculture
easily creates
an impression
of a highly qualified professional.
until you ask where she trained
and Zipporah Simiyu bursts into
a hearty laughter. “I have trained
myself”, she softly replies and the
memories of that day in 2004
when she brought together her
neighbours over a cup of tea to
discuss how they could work
together to improve their incomes
are relived.
Back then, farmers were poor,
relying on beans and maize amidst
idle potential. Her attempts to
introduce horticulture on her fiveacre
farm yielded nothing because
neighbours would raid the farm
and cart away produce.
To stop the malpractice, she
decided to call the neighbours
to discuss how they could work
together so that each would
become their brother’s keeper.
They liked the idea, and she was
asked to lead them. This was the
beginning of Good neighbours,
a community-based organization
that today is transforming
livelihoods in parts of Western and
rift Valley regions of the country.
From a group of 10 farmers,
voluntarily managing a communal
nursery she is running an empire
of 8,000 groups with 50,000
individuals, a development she
looks at with both passion and
satisfaction. “People are making
48
The making of
Good Neighbours
money, living better lives and
eating more nutritious foods”, she
said.
after starting with passion
fruits, Good neighbours, whose
head office is in Wabukhonyi
market, Bungoma County, has
since diversified into tomatoes,
mango, tissue culture bananas,
macadamia, avocado, african leafy
vegetables and still growing.
Zippy, as she is fondly referred
to by the neighbours, says
although the take off was slow,
the project eventually kicked off
as participants started earning
weekly from the first passion fruit
harvest in May 2004.
But in november of the same
year, bacterial wilt attacked
the fruits, a blessing in disguise
because she visited every office
she thought would help – Kenya
agricultural research Institute,
Ministry of agriculture and big
growers like Kakuzi. Kari’s head
of horticulture Dr Lusike Wasilwa
has been very helpful, she says
and took it almost personal and
helped them to introduce the
propagated varieties that are less
susceptible to diseases.
In the process of finding
a solution, she stumbled on
development projects like GIZ,
that undertook to help the
farmers establish and expand
nurseries, as well as train farmers
on production and post-harvest
handling of produce. It also
created the need to diversify to
other crops. as the group grew,
and demand for seedlings soared,
it became apparent that voluntary
nursery management was not
H O R T I C U LT U R A L N E W S I j a n u a r y - F E B r u a r y 2 0 1 2
Zippy Simiyu, Managing Director, Good Neighbours
tenable anymore necessitating
the employment of full time
attendants. Today, it has employed
40 full time staff.
By 2007, 30,000 grafted
seedlings had been established.
The Ministry of agriculture and the
japan International Cooperation
agency (jICa) through the
Samllholder Empowerment
Project came on board to train
farmers on water harvesting,
improving feeder roads and postharvest
handling.
around the same time, the
uSaID aids, Population and Health
Integrated assistance (aPHIa 11)
programme approached Good
neighbours to supply fruits and
vegetables for its nutrition project.
“With this order, we required
more fruits therefore we had to
recruit more farmers”, she said.
The deal saw 35,000 seedlings
established and about 50,000
acres of orchards and vegetable
gardens set up.
“I feel happy whenever I see
my neighbours excel because of
growing fruits and vegetables.
at least every home around
mine has tomatoes, passion
fruits and vegetables,” she said
adding, “children are learning in
good schools and have almost
all necessities at their disposal
compared to how impoverished
they were due to overreliance on
maize and sugarcane, seven years
ago.” Most farmers in the group
have small parcels of land with
a few large-scale ones from rift
Valley and nyanza provinces.
In 2008, the uSaID funded
Kenya Horticulture Development
Program (now Kenya Horticulture
Competitiveness Project boarded
the train and partnered with
Good neighbours to replicate
the production units in rift Valley
and Western , a development
that took the fruits to Lessos, and
Kabarak creating 15 additional
demonstration units.
goodneighbours62@yahoo.com,
www.goodneighbours.co.ke
Tel: 020 263 5591 / 0722 220 889