FAO Digital Media Hub - A market in Ahero specializing in the sale of beans, maize and rice.

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A market in Ahero specializing in the sale of beans, maize and rice.

A rice and bean vendor in the main food market in downtown Kissumu making change for a customer. Until the local rice harvest takes place in Ahero and Bunyala, this and all the rice at the market come

Rice and bean vendors in the main food market in downtown Kissumu. Until the local rice harvest takes place in Ahero and Bunyala, this and all the rice at the market comes from Tanzania.

A rice and bean vendor in the main food market in downtown Kissumu. Until the local rice harvest takes place in Ahero and Bunyala, this and all the rice at the market comes from Tanzania.

Bags of rice in a storage facility in Ahero.

A double handful of rice in a storage facility in Ahero.

Sacks of rice for sale in the private rice mill in Ahero, after having been processed.

Bags of rice in a storage facility in Ahero.

Sacks of rice for sale in the private rice mill in Ahero, after having been processed.

Bags of rice in a storage facility in Ahero.

A private rice mill in Ahero where farmers bring their rice after the harvest to be processed and sold.

Women farmers selling rice in a private rice mill in Ahero where it is brought after the harvest to be processed and sold.

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A market in Ahero specializing in the sale of beans, maize and rice.

TCP/KEN/3201 - Input supply to vulnerable populations under the ISFP. At the height of the 2008 food price crisis, FAO, through its Initiative on Soaring Food Prices (ISFP), launched a series of one-year input supply projects to help vulnerable farmers grow more food and earn more money. In Kenya, where civil unrest, drought and high food, fuel and input prices have left poor families even more vulnerable, this assistance has given one community hope for a better future. An earlier FAO investment of two new water pumps helped to revive the Ahero Irrigation Scheme, which had collapsed in the late 90s. To reverse the scheme's low output, FAO, in September 2008, worked closely with Kenya's National Irrigation Board (NIB), the Agriculture Finance Cooperation (AFC) and the Rural Environmental Care for Africa (RECA) to provide 540 farming families with high-yielding rice seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and technical assistance. They helped the farmers to organise into smaller groups and connected them to service providers including banks and equipment rental. Thanks to a robust local and regional market for rice, bigger yields from this last harvest meant bigger profits. Local traders bought more than half of what was produced in Ahero, while others came from elsewhere in Kenya and from nearby countries. The World Food Programme (WFP) bought about 40 metric tonnes, which they distributed to drought-affected communities in Kenya's Rift Valley. It was the WFP's first purchase in Kenya under the newly launched "Purchase for Progress" (P4P) - an initiative to link low-income farmers with markets. At a time when Kenyans throughout the country are being made more vulnerable by drought and other shocks, the need for greater investments in agriculture is all the more pressing.

09/24/2009

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