Follow your dreams in Kenya

The only reason you are human is your ability to follow your dreams, when hope seems idiotic and your ability to fight proves otherwise. Sometimes you’ll win not because you are the best but because you follow your dreams to the last breathe as this is what defines humanity. You should not give up on whatever basis no matter how weird, far-fetched and skeptic you might think you follow your dreams are they are achievable. You only need to make the effort since the only thing between you and success is the will to follow your dreams. The only difference between success and failure is the drive, the passion, and handwork to achieve and be a in a place of exclusives. 

Today is the day to evaluate your goals revisit your vision, make both short term and long term goals and celebrate after achieving the short term goals.Fix your eyes on the long term goals with patience and surely you will reach there. Achievement of the vision calls for sacrifice and perseverance. Other people`s opinions should not define what or who you become. Keep focusing your vision and remember a person with no destination cannot get lost since every destination is good for him. Business plan development is crucial as you follow your dreams. A business plan is a document that supports you to plan growth, seek funding, and monitor performance over a period of time. 

The question of how much money you need and where it will from is the last step in a business plan. There’s an assumption that to grow a business, you need to get access to capital. According Paul Hawkent the author of Growing a Business, the problem with growing a business isn’t the lack of access to capital, but having and borrowing capital before your business is ready to grow and before you’ve fully developed your business model. Remember a business plan is the road-map as you follow your dreams to success. Every person can make it but, it takes real men/women to achieve their wildest dreams.

8 Amazing steps for Achieving Sustainable Agriculture Dream in Kenya

Welcome to 8 amazing steps for achieving  sustainable agriculture business listed down and explained.

AGRIBUSINESS PLAN DEVELOPMENT: Business plan development is crucial for success of any sustainable agriculture dream. A business plan is a document that supports an enterprise to plan growth, seek funding, and monitor performance over a period of time. An agribusiness plan is the road-map to a success in agribusiness.

THE SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE DREAM: Your dream is the most important thing in agribusiness success. The dream shows where you are going and how you want your agribusiness to be in future. Write down the dream in details in order to remain clear and focused as you work on your agribusiness idea.

BE ORIGINAL/ BE UNIQUE: Your agribusiness must be a solution to an existing human problem or need for it to succeed, and not a mere imitation. Take care and identify gaps to address and to avoid desperately looking for market the last minute for your goods and services, common with starters in Agribusiness. Every human problem is a business opportunity. Business opportunities are as many as human problems. Be unique.

EXPECT TOUGH TIMES: There are times when things get tough in every business and agribusiness is no exception. Focusing on the dream will keep you going when things get tough as you wait for better times. The dream will drive your passion and motivate you to act to achieve it. Remain clear about your sustainable agriculture dream and stay focused on achieving your idea.

BREAK DOWN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE DREAM into manageable portions. Being overambitious will lead to frustration and discouragement. Write down 5-10 things you need to do in order to realize your sustainable agriculture dream, and they must be simple, measurable (Quantify to enable monitoring of progress) achievable within your resources and abilities, setting a time deadline for each.

TARGET CUSTOMERS: Find out who’ll be your target customers (e.g. households, hotels, processors, Schools, hospitals etc) what product/ service they need and of what quality.
COMPETITORS: Find out who’ll be your competitors their strengths and weaknesses. Take advantage of their weaknesses by offering what they are not offering the customer.

PREPARE EXPECTED INCOME AND EXPENDITURE BUDGET for your sustainable agriculture dreams, and determines how long it will take to recover the capital invested.

FINANCE: Lastly decide where money will come from and how much you will need for implementation of your sustainable agriculture dream.

Our 2014 Poetry Contest
by Mary Ellen

 

We want to thank all of you who submitted these wonderful poems. We will be constructing a Poetry category on Mushrooming Together for everyone to read them. Please watch for further posts publishing all the entries.  For now, we’d like to publish the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize (plus honorable mention) for everyone to enjoy. Congratulations to ALL the Poets!

1st Place - Jennifer L. Knox of Nevada, IA

The Mushroom Burial Suit

Screwed onto a silky stem with one arm
Buried to the elbow in a skirt of breathy gills,
A smooth hill of snow caps trace the nose
(Once sneezing), shoulders (once shuddering)
And paunch (once hanging over a waist band).
Busy bees, spores fly below the eye’s radar
To lay and lay down their carpet—soon, seamless
As a fondant, they’ll break down the splitting
Skin, blood, bones, and acorns sprouting in the now
Vacant mouth, down through a life of frets
And flurry to the ground thriving under.

"The poem was written about the Infinity Burial Project, here: http://infinityburialproject.com/

I know very little about mushrooms, but when I learn something new, it is inevitably the coolest thing I've ever heard."

2nd Place - Amber Veverka of Charlotte, NC

Mushrooms

The Anishinaabeg once called it puhpowee, that force
which stirs in secret, lifting leaf mold,
surprising even the serious oaks,
who wake to find at their feet
these new beings, peopling their forest.
All in the damp dark, they come reaching,
sent
summoned
pushed
drawn
with a power so particular, it earns its own name.

"I am not a poet but I love poetry, and have enjoyed it all my life. And my interest in mushrooms started as a child in Michigan, walking in the woods with my mom or dad. At the time I only knew the names of a few but marveled at all the shapes and sizes - the sticky purple mushrooms, the deadly destroying angels, the smooth shelf fungus, the elusive morels. I'm still an amateur when it comes to wild mushrooms, though I am learning about more of them with the help of a local naturalist. But this year, for the first time, I harvested my very own shiitake from logs innoculated with Field & Forest spawn: A surprise from my own shady backyard!"

3rd Place - Whitney Richardson of Chicago, IL

Untitled

I field my walks at night
Light-headed)

Spores cool my mind
Crawling hills beside me)))
(((Below a wet earth
A soft glow enlivens
My reflection sings a lasso
I drop to my knees)))
Underground rotting wood murky plank
Carries you honey mushroom to my island
I will take you wherever you'd like to go

"I'm an artist with an interest in melody, ecology and environmental awareness. My interest in mushrooms has led me to the brain of the forest and the wetness of the shower and the home of the log, all favorite places. I'm immersed in mycological surroundings on the regular now, a new thing for me."

Honorable Mention - Jared Urchek of Boulder, CO

Contamination:

Contamination
Illicit beings upon
My small creations

"Well, I am a mushroom cultivator, I have a small business in Boulder, CO. I was sitting in my shop, buying some of your products when I noticed the poetry contest. I must have sat and looked around for inspiration, and saw a batch of my mushrooms that got contaminated:) Cest la vie! I didn't get mushrooms out of those blocks, but at least I got a good poem!"

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Growing up in the 60’s meant there was a lot of listening for entertainment. My sister and I would lie on the living room floor next to the record player and listen to Disney soundtrack LPs.  My mom would sing us folk songs with her guitar when we were sick.  My oldest sister would read us “The Highway Man” by Alfred Noyes from our family poetry anthology before bed.  That anthology was so well read it had a broken spine by the time I was of reading age. I made sure that we had a similar book in the house when our own kids were little.

Poetry is something that is enjoyed by all ages. Kids love to read poems and lots of kids like to write it. Poetry is fun but also can be dead serious and desperately sad.  Poetry arrests my consciousness and makes my jaw go slack when I hear Garrison Kiellor reading a daily poem on The Writers Almanac.  It isolates and defines and plays with light and illusion as a photographer might do with a camera.

The idea of bringing mushroom poetry to visitors of Mushrooming Together came when a friend of ours sent an original  poem for me to read aloud when Joe was in the hospital  for a few days.  I read the poem to Joe, to nurses, then to Joe again. I found myself wanting to share “Ode to a Toadstool” with every mushroom cook and dinner guest. I got to wondering how much mushroom related poetry was out there…. after all, it’s hard to find a more mysterious, beautiful, functional and culturally important subject!

 

As it turns out we were thrilled to receive 28 excellent entries for this contest. Blind submissions were judged by Dr. Amy Reddinger, Associate Professor of English at UW-Marinette.  All of the poems were wonderful; we couldn’t believe so many talented writers knew … really knew!…. mushrooms.  The top three submissions are so elegant they need no further introduction from us.  The honorable mention, also awarded by Dr. Reddinger who is NOT a mushroom grower, had us giggling and nodding.

 

Hydroponics fodder technology innovation arrives in Kenya

Kenyan livestock farmers are growing fodder in 8 days using an innovation called hydroponics fodder technology. Kenyan livestock farmers can now grow high quality animal feeds for maximization of livestock yields. These sounds too good to be true yet it’s tested and proven. The high yielding hydroponics fodder technology innovation is fast spreading in the country, offering Kenyan livestock farmers round supply of nutritious green fodder. Hydroponics fodder technology has a cycle of eight days producing up to 50 kgs of the fodder in a 20 by 10 feet space, enough to feed 20 mature cows or 120 goats all year round. Christened by Kenyan livestock farmers as hydroponics fodder technology, due to its ability to grow fodder and other crops without the soil, it has been embraced by Kenyan livestock farmers as a solution to land scarcity, as a factor of agriculture production is continually becoming limited in the face of population pressure and skyrocketing cost of commercial feeds. 

The innovation has been in existence for the last 50 years globally. Kenyan livestock farmers are just piloting the innovation with majority of about 2 million livestock farmers in Kenya yet to try it.  Hydroponics fodder technology innovation application involves germination of seeds in nutrient rich growth media solutions instead of soil, producing nutritious grass/ root combination. Hydroponics fodder technology versus ordinary cattle feed pasture production requires minimal space and the resulting pasture has is more nutritious. A greenhouse with trays stacked on is required for this innovation. Hydroponics fodder is grown under controlled environment in a six to 10 day cycle. Barley is the most preferred by the innovation due to its superior performance. Grains develop roots and green shoots to form a dense mat. Carbon dioxide addition cuts the growing time to four days and increases production by upto 25 percent.

144M² greenhouse can hold about 1800 trays and produce an average of 1200kg per day using only 800 to 1000 litres of water. This amount of fodder can be used to supplement 100 heads of cattle or 500 heads of sheep or goats per day.

Kenyan livestock farmers have found the following advantages in hydroponics fodder technology innovation:-

Hydroponics fodder technology innovation has ability to save water as its biggest advantage. It requires about two litres of water to produce one kilo of fodder compared to 80 to 90 litres required to produce one kilo of green grass. Hydroponics fodder technology also saves Kenyan livestock farmers the agony of expensive fodder storage facilities because the innovation guarantees a constant supply of high quality fodder.