The ToTs’ having a photo
On the 20th of February 2023, FreshCrop Limited invited their ToTs to attend an annual conference in Nakuru, Kenya. The forum gathered feedback on success stories, challenges, and farmer rates of adoption/barriers to adoption. The two main reasons for the event were: to celebrate our top performing ToTs through our first ever FreshCrop ToT Awards and the second reason being to roll out FreshCrop’s ware buyback program. The ware buyback program will link farmers to markets as the final piece of the value chain. FreshCrop’s network of farmers have access to high quality certified seeds, agrochemical inputs, trainings and market linkages.
FreshCrop’s network of 10,000 Small Holder Farmers (SHF) is possible due to our Train the Trainer (ToT) extension model. FreshCrop conducts annual ToT training conferences which provide a week long training on a range of topics surrounding climate smart potato production. Our ToTs have currently trained over 5,000 SHFs across 250 potato growing groups via FreshCrop Demo sites spread across every potato growing zone. The ToTs are empowered to train their farmer groups via demo sites on CSA practices, pre-season planning and planting, crop and field management, harvest/post-harvest management and marketing/economic benefit. FreshCrop ToTs are ambassadors that provide training, agronomy support and aggregation of potato seed orders.
The participants received Best awards
Best Harvest Award (harvested 1,190 kgs from 75kgs of seed), Best Aggregator Award (sold 1,000 bags last season), Top Trainer Award (trained over 1,000 farmers in 2022), and FreshCrop Ambassador Award (well rounded ToT who performs well in trainings, aggregation and demo management/harvest figures).
The ToT FreshCrop Ambassadors represented the following counties: – Narok, Nakuru, Bomet, Elgeyo Marakwet, Kiambu, Nyandarua, Bungoma, Kakamega and Uasin Gishu. They are eager for the next coming seasons and are very empowered to get into serious action for the year 2023 which is still in its first quarter.