Farm make-over team works on the ground with groundnuts!
Katharine MacMahon, Media Manager(Shamba Shape Up)
This upcoming weekend's Shamba Shape Up episode will feature a groundnut growing family. The team of experts arrive to show how they can not only boost their yields, but also what to look out for when dealing with groundnuts.
This series on the popular Kenyan farming TV show Shamba Shape Up, growing groundnuts is a hot topic for rural farmers. This upcoming weekend's episode the team from Shamba Shape Up will visit Bungoma county, in western Kenya to meet a farming couple, Lillian and Alfred. Together, they will give Lillian’s mother Rebecca’s shamba, which means farm in the regional language Kiswahili, a much needed shape up!
On the shamba, it was clear that the groundnuts were in trouble. CGIAR and the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) funded Sam Muriu, an expert based with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), to help Lillian, Alfred and Rebecca with their groundnut crop.
Groundnuts are a great source of protein and edible oil, and are primarily grown in Africa and Asia by smallholder farmers under rain-fed conditions with limited inputs.
View the episode:
For the shamba make-over, not only were the farmer’s planting techniques in need of some work, but fertilisers such as MEA’s Biofix and Sympa, were added to the field to improve both the nitrogen content of the soil and strengthen improve the number of root nodules.
Sam Muriu and ICRISAT also focused on the dangerous poison Aflatoxin that can affect many sorts of crops, such as groundnuts, maize, sorghum and millets.
Aflatoxin are toxic chemicals produced by fungi which infect groundnuts by entering through damaged husks. The toxin is colourless and odourless, making it very difficult to spot. However, it is key for farmers to understand how important it is not sell groundnuts affected by Aflatoxin due to its cancer inducing properties.
Groundnuts are a great source of protein and normally require little input to get a good harvest. However, there are pests and diseases to be aware of, like aflatoxin, and measures that can be taken to boost nut-production. Photo: Daltoris
The poison can also affect children by stunting their growth and affect the body’s ability to fight infection. Both the family and viewers learnt how if a groundnut husk was damaged or attacked by insects it was likely to be susceptible to Aflatoxin infection, making it unsuitable for sale.
The episode will air on the weekend of 22-23 March, both in Swahili and English, to over 10 million viewers, and will also be online to watch again on the Shamba Shape Up website and at a later stage on our playlist dedicated for the Shamba episodes.
Viewers can also request more information in the form of a leaflet by sending an SMS to 30606 (within Kenya), which will outline the facts from the episode as well as contact information for CCAFS, CGIAR and ICRISAT.
Shamba Shape-Up is a farm make-over program. In each episode, the team visits smallholder farms and addresses the biggest challenges faced by farmers. Using information from its partners, such as the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) and other CGIAR programs, the show presents the knowledge to farmers through broadcasted shows.
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Interested in groundnuts? Read:
- Blog: Groundnuts in Ghana: how change on the ground can combat change from above
- Blog: If understood properly, crop insurance a viable solution for farmers
- All about groundnuts on this ICRISAT page