Masai Farmer Field Day

I had a group of 28 Masai come to look at our farm today, probably one of the most left field visit I have had, the top photo is of some of the group looking over the harvester.
The below photo shows our ladies (10 of) who are harvesting the trial areas by hand. they have to date harvested two 4 ha chickpea blocks, and two 4 ha maize blocks. The ladies standing are a part of the group who were visiting.
One thing I very much tried and emphasize was that the machinery is not anything special and on the scale that they were farming they actually had many advantages over us. The last thing we want is to have smallholders thinking it is only possible with machines.

I managed late this afternoon to harvest a sample of sorghum from our latest 600ha, moisture 12.5 so into it tomorrow.

Winners are Grinner's

James played a Hockey grand final yesterday (Monday) in Nairobi. They played at the only synthetic field in Kenya. I went to support my boy, he played really well and they won 3 to 0. I left there at 5.30pm and arrived home at 8pm, long time in traffic for 40km. 

Link to interview in Canada

http://www.realagriculture.com/2013/02/making-the-move-from-australia-to-kenya-stuart-barden/

This is a link to an interview I gave at a conference I recently spoke at in Canada. We desiccated 200ha of Sorghum (with R/U) from our current 600ha and plan to do the rest in the next 10days or so.
Also planning to plant the other 400ha this week coming.

Crop Progress

This is Gadam white Sorghum, the fellow who grew this seed has grown 6 to 7 t ha of this variety, that is about as good as it can yield. Ours is not even enough for that type yield, wait and see. I expect harvest to be around mid March for this crop.
We are planting the other field of 400ha next week, we have about 50 to 60cm of sub soil moisture, the "long rains" as they are known are in April first half of May, I am trying to line this crop up to get the best use of any in crop rainfall. 

Annie in the snow

Canadian Trip

Annie and I are just back in Kenya after being in Western Canada, I spoke at a conference called farm Tech, all went well (I think). Thank you to the Canadians we met for the great hospitality shown to us both.