Spotlight on Nyagithambo

KIOF maintains several demonstration gardens throughout Kenya.  These serve to teach local communities more about organic farming methods for sustainable livelihoods.  One of our branches is the Nyagithambo Demonstration Center, based at Kamae Shopping Center.  A recent visit to this demo center provided a great update to recent activities there!

Anne at the gate of KIOF’s Nyagithambo Demonstration Center.

The Nyagithambo property is 1.5 acres and hosts a demonstration garden, tutoring hall with solar-run computer, living quarters, and a small shamba.  Two students, Anne and Sarah, from the National Youth Service have been working at KIOF’s Nyagithambo center for the past three months.  These ladies have held classes in their tutoring hall, teaching local community members more about organic agriculture.  Anne and Sarah could show these new farming techniques in the demonstration garden outside the tutoring hall.  They have also been tending the shamba, and planted maize, beans, bananas, coffee, and greens.  Once harvested these crops will be used for consuming and selling as organic produce in the marketplace.

Looking towards the living quarters and demonstration garden.

Tutoring Hall where classes are held for local community members.

The center’s demonstration garden, exemplifying organic farming techniques.

Sarah in the shamba where the ladies have intercropped maize and beans.

The shamba also has mango and avocado trees!

Our recent trip to Nyagithambo included a visit to a neighboring organic farmer, Margaret “Mama Duko”.  Margaret keeps cows, goats, and chickens and practices organic animal husbandry.  She also has a 3-acre shamba that is entirely organic.

Anne and Emma with Mama Duko.

Banana trees planted in zai pits for water conservation and soil fertility purposes.

Intercropping of maize, beans and peanuts to keep soil nutrients balanced.

Fanya juus and irrigation trench to reduce soil erosion and to collect rainwater.

Please visit our link “Demonstration Gardens” under our tab “Be Involved” for more information on KIOF’s demonstration centers!

Karibu Wanafunzi Ugandan

Welcome Ugandan Students!

As part of the Organic Agriculture diploma, KIOF students participate in an exchange program with RUCID (Rural Community in Development) in Uganda.  Our second year students are sent to RUCID for an attachment semester, while a group of RUCID students spend a semester learning at the KIOF Juja compound.

This most recent group of eight Ugandan students arrived at KIOF on April 17th.  Since then, they have completed an orientation to organic agriculture and are now taking classes with KIOF professors.  This past Saturday we sent our second-year KIOF students off to RUCID for their Ugandan semester.

Both groups of students will return to their respective institutions in July.  Until then they are exploring organic agriculture and learning practically in a new setting.

Now Offering a Biomedicine Diploma

In addition to offering a diploma in organic agriculture, KIOF also offers a students a degree in Biomedicine.  This practice uses natural remedies, plants, and other locally available resources for wholesome, preventative medicine and natural healing.

Entry requirement is a KCSE mean grade of C- or a diploma/certificate in organic agriculture.  The diploma is available for men and women.

The whole course takes 12 months to complete.  There are two intakes per year, March/April and September/October.

Course Content:

• Introduction to biodiversity
• Natural resources management and principles of organic agriculture
• Identification of various plant resources
• Characteristics of various plant resources and their classifications
• Harvesting methods (Eco-environmental factors)
• Production (Growing of medicinal plants)
• General human physiology and anatomy
• Processing (cleaning, sterilizing, drying, grinding, packaging, labeling)
• Disease classification (bacterial, fungal, viral, parasitic, etc)
• Compounding the medicines and dosage
• Integration of nutrition in biomedicine
• Herbal cosmetics technology
• First aid in relation to biomedicine
• Herbal cosmetics technology
• Drug abuse in biomedicine
• Policies, rules and regulations on biomedicine
• Two months practical attachment

For registration, please apply immediately to:

The Director

Kenya Institute of Organic Farming

P.O. Box 34972-00100, Nairobi, Kenya

Telephone: 0733799072

Now Offering Eco-Tourism Diploma

That’s right! In addition to organic agriculture, KIOF is now offering a two-year diploma course in Eco-Tourism.  The intake for September/October 2011 is now in progress.  Minimum requirement is KCSE C- or an agricultural background.

Eco-tourism is environmentally responsible travel to natural areas.  It is one of the fastes growing sectors of the tourism industry world-wide.  Sustained development and success of this up-and-coming industry depends on the availability of suitably trained leaders.  This program is designed to develop well-rounded professionals to handle the foreign and local tourists visiting our country and natural sites.

Motto: Making Earth our home

Course Content:

• Introduction to organic agriculture
• Tourism anthropology
• Ecology
• Tourism geography
• Communication skills
• Introduction to information technology
• Organization and management
• Consumer behavior
• Tourism dynamics
• Cultural and heritage tourism
• Kiswahili
• Information management
• Eco-operation
• International marketing
• Managerial accounting
• First aid and safety
• Business law
• Sustainable planning and development
• Hospitality, leisure and tourism
• Foreign languages
• Fidelio
• Final project/assessment

Tuition Fee:

35,600 for 1st year

34,000 for 2nd year

Boarding facilities available (26,550 per year)

Apply Immediately to:

The Director

Kenya Institute of Organic Farming

P.O. Box 34972-00100, Nairobi

Telephone: 0733799072

Workshop for Bondo Farmers

As you may know, KIOF offers week-long workshops to farmer groups on our Juja campus. A group of farmers from a similar area are introduced to organic farming techniques, how to implement them on their shambas, and how to teach other farmers in their community organic practices. From April 11th through the 15th, we had a group of 20 farmers from Bondo, Yanza District attend such a workshop. The week was a great success!

Each day was split into three lessons.  In the morning the farmers learned organic farming theory, and in the afternoon applied these techniques practically on KIOF’s campus.  Farmers learned about soil and water conservation, composting, soil tillage, ecological pest management, and natural animal husbandry.

On Thursday we took a trip to visit three local organic farmers.  KIOF, along with Chania Community Empowerment Program, has worked with these farmers to teach them organic techniques and tutored them how to transition their shamba from conventional to organic while still making a sustainable income.  The Bondo farmers were able to observe recently learned organic practices on a real farm as well as see these farmers are profiting financially.

 

The week concluded with project presentations.  Each farmer designed his or her shamba with newly implemented organic techniques, and shared their plans with the group.  This was an excellent conclusion to the week and helped farmers realistically envision how they will implement organic on their home shamba.

On Friday certificates of organic farming certification were awarded.  We celebrated the week’s accomplishments with a closing ceremony and thanks to all participants.

Welcome to KIOF!

Some of you may be familiar with us, and some of you may be newcomers.  We are the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming, and we work to promote organic agriculture for sustainable rural livelihoods.  You may have seen our (now outdated) website, but we  have moved on to the blog scene now.  So for the newest information and stories from KIOF, visit this blog!

We will be posting updates with news, pictures, and course and workshop updates on this home page.  For more information on our organization, our activities, certification options, volunteering, and our contact information, please visit our other pages (listed at the top).

Thank you for visiting our blog, and welcome to KIOF!