In the spirit of harnessing the new tree technology to benefit Kenya’s poor small-scale farmers, Africa Harvest mobilized famers, helped them organise to benefit from this opportunity and trained them on the various facets of eucalyptus production.

Africa Harvest negotiated for farmer access to the Ministry of Energy’s regional centres across the country. Here field staff and other extension partners could demonstrate to farmers how to effectively manage tree nurseries for successful tree harvests, the market opportunities and available energy-saving technologies for use at home.

Eucalyptus-growing farmer groups were established and trained on raising Eucalyptus trees for sale. So far about 12 million cloned tree seedlings have been produced by four nurseries belonging to small-scale farmer groups.

Additionally, Ministry of Energy staff, KEFRI scientists, entrepreneurs and Africa Harvest field officers were trained on tree-site matching, tree value addition, disease and pest control in order to be able to better support small-holder farmers’ efforts in growing eucalyptus.

Africa Harvest jointly with the Ministry of Energy convened, in November 2008, the first national conference on commercial tree production in Kenya attracting some 200 participants from 15 organisations.  Participants discussed the status of commercial tree production in the country, the opportunities and constraints urging the government to remove policy and regulatory barriers to the production and marketing of power poles.

For more details, see the Conference Report