As the world heads into the last days of 2015, which was declared an International Year of Soil (IYS) at the 68th UN assembly last in 2014, Soil Cares Africa, a model soil sampling company with operations in Kenya is offering help at least 500 farmers in five counties in the country understand about their soil compositions and types of crops to grow.
The offer, which is running for only five days will see those farmers pay only Sh500 for the services that normally cost Sh2000 and above. The Soil Care mobile clinic van will be touring Nyandarua, Nakuru, Eldoret, Meru and Nairobi towns in a bid to help urban farmers in those areas identify suitable crops for their small parcels of land.
According to the company, the move is aimed at mobilizing more urban population to embrace farming with UNDP statistics showing that 66 per cent of the world will be residing in urban areas by year 2050. Currently, the World Bank estimates 25 per cent of Kenyans to be living in towns.
Farmers are asked to send their names and counties to the SMS number 20727 and will be notified on where to meet mobile laboratories near them. Most smallholder farmers lack soil knowledge due to high cost of soil sampling hence grow crops baselessly, hence poor yields.
A food Tank report shows that 78 per cent of smallholder farmers across the world have no soils knowledge. The statistics are more worrying in Africa and Asia where a whopping 90 per cent of farmers blindly grow crops. It further shows that soils are being depleted 10-40 times faster than they are being replenished, destroying at least 30 per cent of the global arable land.
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For more information about Soil care initiative, kindly contact +254 728 970 136 or email info@soilcares.com.