Canola: An Ideal Breakthrough for Growing Your Profitability
“It will reduce weed, pest and disease management expenditures”, says Jason Kamunya
During continual monoculture of barley or wheat, yield progressively declines due to a build of weed, pest, and disease problems. Soil health and soil biology also declines which results in nutrient release generated by soil bacteria and fungi being reduced. The residues from your previous crop take a longer time to break down thus providing a greater source of disease carry over and an unhealthy environment for the seed of the next crop.
“One of the compelling answers to this situation is to introduce a broad leaved crop into your crop," cycle and thus create a simple rotation. Canola is an ideal break crop, says Jason Kamunya.
Disease clean up: Canola has a totally different disease spectrum and thus breaks the carry over cycle of the barley and wheat crop. When the following cereal crop is grown the fungicides will have a chance to perform better and improve disease control compared to a monoculture situation.
Weeds clean up: A different type of herbicide can be used safely in canola which will control brome grass species {and others like ryegrass and setaria}, which have become a serious weed and very difficult to control within the cereal crop. The selective herbicides available for use in canola will give an excellent control of grass weeds and combined with the massive smothering effect of a good canola, farmers can gradually get on top of their weed problem.
Soil Health: The introduction of rotation into your farm will also provide an improved soil environment and a stimulation of a wider range of beneficial soil bacteria and fungi. The large taproot generated by the crop will help open cracks in the soil for improved drainage and deeper root growth?
Financial Gains: The introduction of canola, say on a 3year cycle initially, will lead to improved net income and profitability over the period.
Seeds: The two main varieties available are Belinda {Bayer East Africa Ltd} and TT Hyola {Kenya Highlands Seeds} alternately, Agventure Ltd can provide seed from either of the sources.
Marketing: A contract is provided by Agventure Ltd. For all cooperating growers. It includes the area agreed to be grown, the price calculation applied at the time of selling your grain to Agventure Ltd; and payment terms in addition to all other standard conditions.
Unilever, Agventure and SNV sign unique agreement
Kenyan farmers adopt conservation agriculture to double canola production in 2017.
Unilever East Africa, Agventure Ltd and SNV Netherlands Development Organization have today signed a memorandum of agreement formalising a venture that aims to double canola oil production in Kenya by the end of 2017 through contract farming arrangements. The agreement involves technical assistance to local farmers and financial investment of 23 million split among the three partners.
Speaking during the MOA signing, Unilever East Africa MD Justine Apsey loaded the partnership sighting that it went hand in hand with Unilever’s sustainability commitment towards reducing environmental impact and improving local farmer livelihoods.
“Sustainable farming methods have the portential to increase yields considerably, mitigate the effects of climate change and provide economic and social benefits to farmers, their families, and the surrounding communities. Participating local farmers will benefit from and contribute to economic development and sustainable farming practices in Kenya”.
Unilever purchases around 2% of the world’s supply of sunflower and canola oils, touted as one of the healthiest edible oils and the 7000MT peak demand in Kenya is a perfect trigger to establish sustainable local sourcing model.
On its part SNV, through a program dubbed HortIMPACT, combines the expertise of the private sector with market best solutions to build sustainable and competitive agriculture markets in Kenya. As part of the agreements, SNV will work with Agventure Ltd, a local cooperative of large enterprise farmers that started growing canola and producing canola oil since 2010.
Ambassador Frans Makken of the Kingdom of Netherland was present during the signing. The Dutch Embassy is funding SNVs five year HortIMPACT program and considers the agreement an excellent example of the combination trade and development cooperation which forms the core of the Dutch Development Cooperation Policy.
The agreement foresees that a total of 500 local farmers will be trained resulting in doubling the annual supply of locally sourced canola oil for Unilever to atleast 3000MT by the end of 2017.
Tom Derksen, MD Agriculture and Energy at SNV said; “ This business case is the start of a wider conservation agriculture revolution for farmers. It is an excellent example of how SNV works at the producer level, the company supply chain level and across the wider land scape to deliver lively hood benefits for the poor and sustainable development at scale. It shows agriculture can in fact become more climate resilient and at the same time boost local farmers profits”.