Weathering the drought – An Interview with Andy Farrow

It never rains but it pours, even during a drought. At least that’s what Andy Farrow must have thought when his project’s drought-tolerant bean seeds didn’t thrive due to insufficient rain. And yes, drought-tolerant bean seeds are designed to withstand droughts; but there are droughts and there are droughts. And the drought that hit many parts of Kenya last year saw rainfall levels trickle to about a quarter of those expected.

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Good forecast for 2009 short rains in Kenya

In an earlier post I mentioned the impact on bean seed availability of the poor long rains in March to May.

KMD have now released their outlook for the short rains season of October to December and the forecast is good. Let’s hope this means more seed available for subsequent seasons. The other question is will farmers take heed of the forecasts and will it have an effect on the varieties they acquire?

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Mobile mapping – Out of stock medicines in East Africa

I have just been reviewing SciDev.Net and saw another interesting application of mobile mapping, this one using FrontlineSMSand Ushahidi.

Wouldn’t it be nice to see this for season specific legume seed availability.

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Failure of the ‘long-rains’ has led to a shortage of bean seed

The objective of the Nodes of Growth project is to improve legume seed networks in Kenya by providing information on the location of exisiting seed outlets and recommendations for new outlets of seed.

For farmers to use the improved drought-tolerant varieties depends on a number of factors, but include:

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Who’s missing out on seed?

We now have information on the location of seed outlets in Nzaui district in Eastern Province and in Kirinyaga district in Central Province in Kenya.

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Task 2 – People, Nodes, and Networks

 

Our Nodes of Growth need to be connected to people. The second task in Phase 1 is the collection of spatial datasets which answer three key questions:

(1)   Who wants to grow improved drought-tolerant beans?

(2)   Where can they get improved drought-tolerant bean seeds?

(3)   How can they get to and from the places selling or loaning these seeds?

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