Frustration with the Network, an Agricultural Trade show and a trip to Eldoret

Not an extremely eventful a week but here's a quick recap: Perhaps the highpoint was finally balancing (more or less) the finances for our Network. It was a huge ordeal but now things are in order and it should be a lot easier to keep them that way. I also noticed from the newly balanced budget something that I had expected all along: We are currently spending about twice the amount we are getting monthly from the FAO, and as a result we have just a little over a year left before our money runs dry. Also, there's little we can do in terms of cost cutting since we are running at a bare minimum as it is. Thus, the only way to keep the network operation long-term is to start increasing our income generating activities. My goal is to bring this network to self-sustainability before I leave, and I'm starting to realize that I really have my work cut out for me. The volunteer before me put everything into place and got the ball rolling, but he did it with plenty of outside funding from the UN. It seems I'm now left responsible for something much more difficult to accomplish. People are much more willing to work with money coming in from an outside source. Now that the network is being weaned off outside funding, I'm seeing a potentially big problem. I've mentioned this before, but out of our 10 network officials I'd say there's about three that actually do anything beneficial to the network, and the rest seem to just be in it for the money they get for travel expenses and attending meetings. In these meetings, most of the officials talk plenty about getting things accomplished but do nothing. Most Kenyans are very non-confrontational, so this issue isn't really being addressed, but something needs change if the network is going to survive. I'm afraid it might be left up to me to shake things up a bit, which I'm not looking forward to, but I didn't come to Kenya and leave so much behind just to see things fail.

So back to my week, we had about 30 visitors come visit the Network from India. As I mentioned, our network is considered the golden child of all FFS networks in Africa and visitors are always coming from all over the world to see how it operates and model their networks after ours. Our network officials told these visitors, as they do all the other visiting groups, of things we are supposedly doing: We are generating income from renting sweet potato chippers to the farmers (the money never makes it back to the network). We are updating village boards with the latest agricultural prices on a regular basis, so farmers are aware of pricing and have some leverage again middle-men. (the village boards, no matter how many times I've pleaded, are still sitting in storage). We are maintaining a crop database to provide buyers with information on what we are growing, which in turn allows us to sell crops at harvest time at a much better price to larger markets. The commission we get for setting up the commodities exchanges is going back to the network. (There has only one trade in the history of the network and it didn't work out. The database isn't being maintained because the information is not coming in from the field) Etc. Etc. Etc.

So I'm a bit frustrated right now, because there's so much talk and so little action; so much that can be done and needs to be done and isn't being done. I guess if things were running perfectly I wouldn't need to be here though. I have a meeting scheduled soon to discuss these issues and I hope things improve soon. The Sweet Potato processing grant money I applied for is coming in July and I'm worried that we'll be making the same kinds of lies about things we are not actually doing with that money as well unless things change.

The rest of the week was spent preparing for and attending an agricultural trade show in Kakamega. Our network was in the show and we demonstrated various value addition techniques, hybrid breeds of bananas, and ways we are supposedly (but not really) assisting the farmers with market information.

At the trade show I had a chance to walk around to all the different booths and displays, and I found some very promising cash crops. I also purchased some demo seeds for various cash crops and will have some of the more motivated farmers in the network grow samples in order to see if the market demand is really as promised.

After the show I left for Eldoret, where I am working with Adrienne on getting a youth group established as a registered CBO (community based organization) that is wanting to do community outreach work. Things went well and now officials have been elected and subcommittees are being formed to evaluate various needs in the villages and start working towards ways to help. Today I am meeting an agricultural officer in Eldoret concerning a potential market for Passion fruit and then I'm headed back to Kakamega. That's about all for the latest.

Italy in just one week! I'm really excited about it.