A TEAM of staff and students from Duchy College have been working with farmers in Kenya as part of a Comic Relief project, in partnership with Plymouth University. 

The group has been working with the Farm Shop Trust to help the organisation develop a sustainable and commercially viable supply chain for agricultural businesses across its network.

It’s hoped the scheme, which has been supported by over half a million pounds worth of funding from Comic Relief, will help expand the number of franchisees, with the ultimate goal of helping around 100,000 farming households out of poverty in Kenya’s Kiambu County and adjacent areas.

Under the project, Claire Reigate, from the Duchy College Rural Business School, spent six weeks in Kenya, along with Duchy College Horticulture student Mo Roberts.

Claire said: ‘Mo and I have been reviewing how small scale farmers are being trained and whether we can develop a work-based training package for farm shop assistants. 

‘I’d like it to incorporate animal health, horticulture, IT and agri-business; all of which could potentially be delivered or co-ordinated by the Rural Business School.’

The duo from Duchy College were also joined by a business and entrepreneurship intern and an IT student, both from Plymouth University.

Claire continued: ‘We spent two weeks with the members of the project attending on-farm training to see how it is organised and conducted. 

‘This enabled us to learn more about the challenges Kenyan farmers face.

‘Anything from ten to 30 farmers attend the free demo training days which take place on a farm near a farm shop.’

Being able to sell what they have grown, money, access to training, agronomy and vet and med supplies are the biggest challenges the Kiambu farmers face, the latter two of which the Farm Shop Project is helping with. 

Claire added: ‘I have to say that the farm shop team has been brilliant. They are very welcoming and have really looked after us.

‘They do a fantastic job, they work long hours and all of them seem to go beyond their duty.

‘It is a pleasure to work alongside them.’

Mo, as well as working with Claire and the team to develop the new infrastructure of shops and farmer support, has also been taking time to collect data for her studies at Duchy.

She has been busy interviewing farmers to better understand the constraints on the diversity of agricultural crops grown by smallholders in the region, which in turn will help to develop practices that will enable Kenyan farmers to become more resilient and sustainable in the future.

The next phase of the project will involve staff from Duchy and Plymouth visiting Kenya during 2016 to complete a survey of farmers aimed at understanding the impact of the Comic Relief project on the lives and livelihoods of the local farming community.