World Food Day Event, Koilot Centre, Kenya

World Food Day is an international evet held to acknowledge food concerns around the world. This year, the County Government of Nandi through the Ministry of Agriculture held the event at Kiolot Centre, with the theme, ‘Climate is changing; food and agriculture must too’.

Both the Cabinet Secretary of Agriculture and the Deputy Governor CEC Agriculture from Nandi County attended delivering speeches on the importance of food security interventions. EPK presented information on kitchen gardening and tea husbandry to the attendees.

KITCHEN GARDENING:

The Out Growers department of EPK demonstrated how to make full use of small farming spaces for kitchen gardens with an emphasis on the importance of establishing food security. Commonly referred to in Nandi Hills as ‘Kapungut’ kitchen gardens have traditionally been used for growing basics such as onions. It is important to enhance the practice to help communities kill dependency on other economic activates that often take too long to gain from.

The demonstration enhance knowledge of how a small space can go a long way to sustain a communities’ food supply all year round and in turn makes it easy for families to meet other needs such as education for their children. Additional information was provided on the use of locally available resources such as the Mexican Marigold Weed, which can be used to keep pests away therefore eliminating the need to purchase pesticides and in turn conserve the environment.

TEA HUSBANDRY:

EPK demonstrated the developments in the tea sector to farmers through various aspects of tea husbandry such as plucking, fertilizer application, weeding and factory operations. A presentation of made teas was used to enhance aspects of quality with emphasis given to the chemical composition of plucking two leaves and a bud.

EXHIBITORS:

The world food day fair also attracted other exhibitors who notably focused on value addition and use of resources to mitigate climate change.