Farmers employ different strategies when it comes to farming. For instance, for land preparation, options available could be conventional ploughing plus harrowing, minimum tillage through ripping/chiselling and application of herbicides (glyphosate) etc. Above the technical skills involved, there are cost implications and economic impact associated with these strategies.
Therefore, CGA aspires to equip farmers with the necessary skills to analysis their farming enterprise, make informed decision based on facts/figures and experiences sharing.
As key indicators and tools for decision-making, CGA has retained:
- Gross Margin[1] and cost of production split to evaluate the performance of farm enterprises as well as alternative technical strategies or crops.
- Cashflow[2] For a family farm, cash availability is critical to not only being able to finance daily expenses on the farm and for the household, but also invest or make savings. It requires a constant balancing between household expenses and operational needs of the farm. It calls for forecasting cash inflows and outflows of money to make the best decisions on the farming strategies (early input procurement, storage of produces, organising the crop and husbandry cycles for best complementarity of inflows and outflows calendar)
Getting these indicators/tools implies that farmers keep records of their costs and incomes. A record booklet has thus been developed. The data collected are then uploaded on a digital platform that enables data analysis.
Those economic data are valuated during a season assessment, a process where farmers come together after the season to review and compare their different farm operations strategies, discuss the associated costs and performances and collectively seek solutions to improve their farm profitability.
The process includes the following steps:
- Global overview and information about the season: rain patterns, incidences of pests and diseases, yields, market, prices…
- Sharing discussion about farm operations strategies (technical information): land preparation method, date of planting, type of fertilizers used…
- Economic data presentation, discussion and comparison. Here, 3 or more volunteer farmers who had recorded their farm operation costs share their figures about their cost of production, their income and the gross margin generated.
- Cashflow management discussion, based on the example of the farmers who had recorded their monthly cash flows.5. Ways forward and decision-making: combining the technical and economic discussions, farmers, with the support of CGA field staff, draw the lessons and decide what practices and procurement or market strategies they would like to keep, change, seek more information about… for improved farm management. decisions can be at individual farm level, as well as at the group level (joint early procurement of inputs …). These discussions are transcribed into an action-plan, highlighting the training and support needs from CGA. 6. Accompaniment of the group in the implementation if the decision taken alla long the following season.
On 1st December 2022, CGA piloted a season assessment meeting with Nalepo Women Group in Oloropil ward in Narok County, the group came together to start merry go round out of the money they used to get from the casual labour work.
The season has experienced depressed rains, pest and diseases outbursts which required more sprayings and farmers faced difficulty to access good quality inputs.
Also, despite good maize prices, the weight of the bag while selling to local traders was questioned with some farmers claiming the bags could weight up-to 150kgs (no clear standard of measurement to ascertain the weights). Interestingly, Sylvia a local trader who was present in the meeting, tried to explain her reason for buying at such weight, claiming that the farmers were harvesting at higher moisture contents that required additional drying. It was such a heated debate. CGA will dig deep into this conversation to support the farmers to find amicable solution.
On yield the farmers said that with the season had not been good, yields ranging from 10 to 15 bags/acre while in a good season they normally harvest around 22 90kgs bags/acre.
But even a difference of 5 bags on an acre becomes significant in a context of low production. The group then went to the comparison of their farm operation strategies to find some explanations of the difference among farmers.
The discussions revealed the importance of early planting in the context of lack of rains and the care to put in acquiring good quality inputs.
Then, the discussions around the economic results of 3 farmers who have kept records enable to put in perspectives the financial impact of technical choices like ploughing vs ripping, using manure vs inorganic fertilizer.
Out of the discussion, the farmers were able to agree on the following as a way forward;
- Continue/start keeping records – CGA will provide training and support
- Training needs: good agricultural practices (through a demo), agrochemical use, post-harvest handling
- To mitigate the challenge of counterfeit inputs, aggregate the needs for seeds and fertilizers – CGA will link with suppliers to get genuine inputs.
- Set weighing standards to avoid issues of farmers selling at undetermined weights and consider selling as a group to avoid exploitation by the local traders.
“During the season assessment] it was very instructive to discuss with my members about our practices this season and we could see the economic impact of planting late or using minimum tillage and the number of fertilizer applications for example. We have agreed on some way forwards like aggregating demand for seeds and trying to do minimum tillage.” Says Mary, Chairlady of NALEPO Women Group, Narok County.
Through this exercise, CGA was able to confirm the relevance of collecting farm technico-economic results and discussing them collectively as a group during season assessment in supporting farmers in the improvement of their farming system and thus their income.
NOTES: [1] Gross margin (GM) is the difference between the gross income and farm operation costs. It doesn’t consider the fixed costs (depreciation, taxes, credit costs, etc.), which can be difficult to calculate and/or neglectable for small scale farmers. [2] Cashflow is the total amount of cash available on the farm or at the household level. It is based on the difference between cash inflows and cash outflows.