Custom Hay Bailing as a Business for Former Street Children in the Kenyan Highlands.
Presented By: Sjoerd W. Dulker, PhD
Event: 2014 ECHO International Agriculture Conference (17-11-2014)
Related to an initiative for street children in Nyeri, Kenya to empower them to start their own businesses, inquiries revealed that animal feed preservation for the growing dairy industry was a business opportunity. Low-cost harvesting and baling equipment was introduced in 2010 to facilitate feed storage and transportation from rural to suburban areas where zero-grazing dairy units are ubiquitous. Youth in the focus area formed a custom hay baling team serving farmers in the Mt. Kenya area. Follow up business analysis revealed that net income up to $5 per person per day was achieved.
Presenter:
Sjoerd is a Soil Management Specialist in the Crop Management Extension Group at Penn State University. His work concentrates on sustainable intensification using conservation agriculture. He has helped destitute youth in Kenya start a hay baling business using appropriate technologies and is interested in scaling this effort up