u/Morio_anzenza

This is not a gender war, just an observation and my two cents. Every week on the relationships subreddit, I must come across young girls looking for sponsors and customers. No shame to sex workers, but I am wondering why that is in this day and age in Kenya. Every week I see girls looking for an easy way out. I do know for a fact that in recruitment of jobs, women are being preferred thanks to DEI. In my class, all the girls got jobs within the graduation year despite COVID, I graduated in 2020. Us guys on the other hand, different story. Most of us had to seek alternatives. Personally, during attachment I made a resolve that I would just look for some few coins and go into farming. I tarmarced for that attachment nikarudi shule and told attachment cordinator nimeshindwa. He had to give me attachment shule. Nowadays, most banks have dedicated departments dealing with financing women businesses. There are so many programs targeting women. It used to be youth and women but along the way it became just women.

In my field if you are a woman uko mbele sana. As I struggle to scale my business and get overseas clients, there are programs for women led agribusinesses. In these programs, women with agribusinesses are onboarded and taken to business expos and B2B meetings in Europe to network with potential clients. Imagine, free of charge, all expenses paid. Mimi on the other hand I must have 300k for a single expo. These are free passes. Honestly, I'm jealous. Organisations like AGRA are holding business trainings for women and funding their businesses. The trend is the same in other fields; tech start ups, in education scholarships are mostly given to women. Some scholarships are purely for women.

I look and see all these opportunities for women and just wonder, why choose to pursue sponsors and prostitution? You can't stay young and pretty forever but if you start building now, you have a lot of opportunities to take advantage of. If you have a phone or a laptop and you can look for a mubaba online, I am sure you can research and get these opportunities. I genuinely believe these type of girls are lazy or not ambitious enough because if I had access to such opportunities ningekua mbali sana.

By now, most of us know about the ongoing JJA rainfall under performance in the rift valley. A lot is being said about the rainfall and everyone talking about how we should invest in irrigation but no one is talking about how the poor farming systems are contributing to the disaster unfolding.

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Firstly, I don't understand the obsession with ploughing the land every season in our grain growing areas. Not just maize, but wheat, canola, barley, and sorghum. This practice is very popular with Africans BTW because I see the jungus in Laikipia don't do it. They practice what is called minimum tillage. It's a very good soil regeneration and soil moisture conservation practice. They dont plough their land. They leave the straw out in the field. It acts as mulch for the next crop. It also acts as organic matter once it breaks down enriching the soil with nutrients and organic acids important for plant growth and improve yields. Organic acids like fulvic acids help plants withstand drought. By practicing this, soil moisture is conserved because soil is not exposed and their crops can withstand drought for 2-3 months. Imagine, without wilting or affecting the yields. Compare that with what our African farmers do.

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Secondly, weather forecast. The JJA rainfall under performance was reported in February. Farmers were asked to plant in late February lakini wapi. Most chose to ignore and decided to follow the traditional calendar. Weather forecasts exist for a reason. I don't see why any literate person would choose to ignore such forecasts when their livelihoods depend on that information. It's because of such things that I don't think Africa can feed itself. We are never beating the inferior race allegations walahi.

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Now, I'm imagining scenario 2 where all these farmers practiced minimum tillage, and followed weather forecasts. The outlook would have been very different. Our farmers would still be expecting a bumper harvest. Hapa we can't even blame the government because KMD did their job. Kusaidia waafrika ni ngumu sana man.

Most people dream of getting money and buying land in Laikipia, or somewhere around Mt. Kenya or Aberdares. My dream is buying land somewhere in Ukambani or Mbeere and settling down there. Maybe a hill somewhere to perch my bungalow. Have a solar farm nearby for electricity, heating water and for irrigation uses. A backyard with kienyeji chicken, chicken coops, my Galla goats and a couple of ducks.

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I have been farming in Ukambani and I absolutely love it despite the heat and venomous snakes. Ukambani if you have access to water, you have a goldmine. Crops that take 3 months to reach maturity in places like Narok take 2 months in Ukambani. Maize that takes 5-6 months to mature in rift valley take 3 months in Ukambani. We already know that the sweetest fruits come from Ukambani. Brokers flood Mwingi in January because of their big juicy watermelons. Honey from different places in ukambani have very distinct flavour profiles. If there's a region best suited to become a food basket for Kenya, it's Ukambani, not Rift Valley. I'm starting to think that ukambani has been systematically neglected because of the potential it has in terms of food production.

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To achieve food security, we need to concentrate on such regions where food grows fast. We can get three harvests of grains from ukambani every year compared to two in rift valley. Vegetables in Ukambani take 2 months to mature so you can imagine how that region would serve the vegetables market as well. We have two of the longest and largest rivers flowing there so canals would improve agricultural production. With solar dryers in those areas, proper drying of maize would reduce aflatoxin contamination by a huge margin improving food safety. Another advantage of ukambani is the region doesn't experience political unrest unlike the volatile rift valley.

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Unfortunately leaders from there are the likes of Kalonzo, Mutua, kina Wavinya and the like. These leaders would not want to see that region grow. Merchants of poverty those ones.

I have developed a habit of checking out apartments being advertised as vacants during my walks. I call, naingia, and check out just because. Sasa, I've noticed that in all of these apartments, I find luxury cars like BMW, Mercs AMGs and C and S class, Audi A series and a couple of Mazdas gathering dust in parkings. From the dust all over, the cars have not been driven for a couple of weeks juu even the handles are dusty, no tire marks below the cars where you'd expect them when the car is being driven in or out.

These cars are popular among sharp boys but I still wonder because I know the economy is doing wonderfure on that side. I saw a couple of them celebrating the announcement by Mbadi that the dollar could hit 180. Wanataka ifike ata 250. Anyway, from the inactivity of these cars, I am guessing sharp boys are busy making money that they don't have any time to waste driving their cars. Heri nyinyi guys. Lakini msijifungie sana kwa nyumba. Piga lap at least hadi Kenol alafu urudi.

When the Iran war intensified mid April, I decided to stock up on supplies like fertilisers because they had started getting expensive. I had to buy seeds, which don't come cheap for the next project. At the same time, demand for green chillies went down because of increased freight charges. The good thing with chillies is you can easily wait for them to turn red and dry them then sell. So I let them turn red and they're due for harvesting. I have like an acre of capsicum due for harvest mid June. Anyway, as a result of all this, I have a lot of capital in the farm waiting either to be sold or mature.

On top of that, I'd like to improve irrigation infrastructure and get a back up pump. So mimi huyo, I went to the bank to apply for an unsecured loan to get financing for the irrigation set up and some working capital to get things going on. The problem sasa has been getting a guarantor. Yani people I would gladly have signed a loan for wali ingia nyasi. Some of these guys ata I helped them start life, contributed money and items and moral support. Some have even been asking me for investment advice and my guidance on how to start agribusiness, so it's not like they don't know I am capable of paying back the bank. I never imagined getting two signatures would be this hard. Some did not have active accounts.

It really got me thinking juu what will happen in future when I'm borrowing a sum like 10 million because I'll definitely get there. It hit me that I don't have social capital, especially in terms of people who understand the dynamics and nuances of business, borrowing and people who share a vision. I remember when I previously took a loan and the bank would hold trainings for us and I'd meet guys servicing loans za lorries like FRRs, Actros, container shipments from China, Uganda, millions of money and asked myself how solid their social capital is. I eventually got the two signatures but I hadn't realised it would be that difficult.

This experience has opened my eyes. I will have to take this building capital thing more seriously and be intentional about it. Itabidi I start look for more people with shared vision and faith because men, this is not it. It's also important to note that guarantors in unsecured loans don't get hounded. I know this because a guy I signed for has never finished paying off his loan and the most the bank has ever done was ask me to show them where he operates from.

Anyway, have a productive day guys.

A new GMO variety of potatoes has been developed. It's been designed to be resistant to late blight. Researchers took the genes responsible for late blight resistance in wild potatoes and transferred them to the common shangi variety grown in Kenya. As you already, there is pesticides and fungicides misuse in Kenya. In potatoes, late blight can cause 100% loss overnight and that's one of the reasons they misuse fungicides. It's the reason they rely on restricted fungicides and these residues find their way into your plate.

Growing this particular GMO ensures that farmers use less fungicides because they don't have to stress about late blight. This means that food safety will significantly improve, income for farmers, yields will improve. The introduction of this variety is actually big news.

Lakini, would you consume it? What exactly are your concerns about it?

The current government is made up of politicians who were in ODM in 2007. Kina joho, ruto, madvd, kingi, and others. BTW, it's weird that people were okay with raila keeping the company of people like joho but got mad when ruto appointed him to his government. Talk of double standards. Anyway, after looking at the current government, and the thought that the same people were on raila's side in 2007 made me conclude that we would have been in the current situation sooner. Probably as early as possible 2012.

Given that ruto was against the current constitution, there's no way of knowing if we would still have it today. Raila supported that constitution by virtue of being in the grand coalition, I stand corrected though. It's the same way they supported BBI because uhuru was funding his campaign. Raila was a "gun" for hire who used his supporters to get what he wanted. He might have fought for multi-party but it wasn't for the people. He was not a hero. If grand coalition never happened, he probably would have been against the constitution.

If ODM won in 2007 sai we would have been like Nigeria or worse. Ruto would probably have still become president as early as 2017. We would have had a much worse electoral system, worse than the Electoral Commission of Kenya.

Alafu BTW Sifuna won't make a great president. He's a politician. This guy won your hearts by being a villain, not because of having an agenda. Ruto won people's hearts the same way. He's also surrounded by people who have no regard for life or the rule of law like babu but because wako na aura and they're villains, they will probably get those votes. Alafu 2028 or 2029 mtaskia they have joined forces with the opposition 😆.