Today we set out in a few different directions as part of the group went to Newton to interview farmers and the others remained in the Makeni area. Half of the interviewing team stayed back to visit two greenhouses, and the remaining team members split up to focus on seedling production and the financial analysis at the WHI office.
We got a taste of some of the challenges facing our greenhouse farmers during our onsite visits today. The primary issue being faced currently is a lack of water for irrigation as the dry season has been especially harsh with many months of little to no rain. This dry season is coming to an end though as we saw with rain the last two nights. There is also the consistent challenge unrelated to biological aspects of greenhouse farming, in which larger associations struggle to divide responsibility. Without a strong leader assigning roles to individuals greenhouse upkeep fall by the wayside. At times, challenges arise from a lack of personal investment in the project and little greenhouse experience, causing customers to fail to seek assistance when growing problems occur.
Three members from the interviewing team also traveled to Newton and had the chance to visit three greenhouses; one at a catholic missionary, one at a juice factory, and one at Barefoot Women’s College. Two of the greenhouses were running successfully and had already had 3-4 harvests. They reported similar problems as the Makeni greenhouses such as water shortages, but also struggled with miscommunication between greenhouses and the office, and storage issues after harvest.
After the local interviewing group returned they began to digitize their data, while Scott began working to build a stackable seedling crate made of local materials in order to help increase production rates in the greenhouses.
As we continue to collect this detailed information about the issues our greenhouse customers are facing we begin to develop approaches to address each of them, from organization to agronomy.
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