Ken the farmer

12/06/2026

12/06/2026

When it’s 5pm in Mchoka Bure village on the slopes of Mt Kenya, where I come from, life slows down in a special way.

You will see people walking back home with firewood on their backs, and thin smoke rising gently from kitchen roofs as every home prepares supper.

In my grass-thatched round cultural house, I keep it simple and traditional. I boil meat slowly in a clay pot, letting it mix with herbs.chiefs daughter likes it when I mix with herbs.

Sometimes I enjoy it with a cold fermented sugarcane juice mixed with honey, straight from nature.

Simple peaceful life I respect.

~Village-based investor (VBI)

12/06/2026

Watch how the improvised fruit fly trap is doing.

This little invention has become the hottest club in the neighborhood. The male fruit flies can't resist it.

The pheromone produces a scent that tricks them into thinking there's a female fruit fly somewhere nearby looking for a happy moments. They rush in full of confidence, ready to impress.

Only to discover they have walked into a one-way meeting.

After landing inside the trap, they suffocate and fall into the water.

The same instincts that help them multiply are now helping me reduce their population.

This is how I'm finishing this generation and reducing the pressure on my habanero crop without spraying the fruits every other day.

Something must kill a man .

~Village-based investor (VBI)

12/06/2026

They say “telephone farming” is not advisable, but you can even be on the farm every day and still not understand what is happening if you don’t observe well.

Farming is not only about spending money. It is a process of learning to read your crops. They always show signs when something is wrong.

Look at these pepper plants. The leaves are curling inwards. Before rushing to spray chemicals, first understand the pest.

Different pests show different signs:

- Thrips: Leaves curl and turn silvery.
Control: Acetamiprid-based pesticides

- Aphids: Leaves curl and feel sticky because of honeydew.
Control: Neem-based products or Lambda-cyhalothrin

- Spider mites: Leaves get tiny yellow or white spots and may form fine webbing.
Control: Appropriate miticides or targeted insecticides after confirmation

The key message is simple: don’t guess. Identify first, then spray. Wrong spraying wastes money and does not solve the problem.

Always walk through your farm, check the underside of leaves, and observe closely. Your plants are always “talking”,you just need to understand the signs.

Friday, 4:45pm, time to go irrigate the throat .

~Village-based investor (VBI)

12/06/2026

How I'm controlling fruit flies that pierces fruits and lay eggs ,eggs that hatch to worms (larvae ) larvae that destroys fruit quality.

Safe farming.

12/06/2026

Farming is an art.

Yesterday, those who joined my live session here on Facebook witnessed how I managed to attract and control thousands of fruit flies that had camped in my habanero farm.

Fruit flies are a serious headache for pepper farmers. They pierce the fruits and lay eggs inside. After hatching, the larvae feed within the fruit, making it turn brown, soft, and watery, eventually reducing both quality and market value.

Since I'm always pushing for safe food production, I wanted a solution that would reduce the pest population without spraying chemicals directly on the crop.

So, I got creative.

I took a small piece of mattress foam, tied it with binding wire, cut a 1-litre bottle, and dipped the foam in a pheromone liquid. I then added a little water into the bottle and hung the trap around the farm.

The pheromone specifically attracts male fruit flies. Once they enter the trap, they get trapped, suffocate, and fall into the water.

The results shocked me.

Within just a few minutes, thousands of fruit flies had been attracted into four traps.

Check the next video and see what happened!



~Village-based investor (VBI)

12/06/2026

Story Time.

This picture was taken during one of the darkest seasons of my life.

I took it outside a hospital in Mchoka Bure village, back home in Kenya. At the time, life had shown me dust from every direction imaginable.

I had lost a lot of money in business,both in agriculture and other ventures I was running. Every time I tried to stand up, another blow came.

Then came the floods in our South Sudan farm.

Over 20 acres of bulb onions were ready for harvest in just three days. Three days. After months of work, investment, hope, and sleepless nights, the floods swept everything away.

As if that wasn't enough, my car was stolen during the same period.

At the same time, I was trying to improve my sheep breed. I had an ex-South African Dorper ram and crossed it with my local sheep. I was excited about the future. But when lambing season came, tragedy struck. The lambs were too big, and many of the local ewes struggled to deliver. About 90% of them died from complications and excessive bleeding.

The losses kept piling up.

Some of the things that happened during that season are still too painful to write about.

Everything seemed to be collapsing at once.

There were days I genuinely thought I was losing my mind.

That's how I ended up spending time at that hospital compound. I would walk there and sit quietly for hours. In my mind, if I finally went mad, at least I would already be at the hospital and someone would know what to do.

That's how low life had brought me.

But here is the thing about storms: they convince you they will last forever, yet they never do.

Today, I am sitting comfortably in The Gambia, eating domoda and reflecting on that chapter of my life.

The pain did not defeat me.

The losses did not finish me.

The disappointments did not bury me.

That season taught me something priceless: when life gives you another opportunity, grab it with both hands. Work hard. Learn. Adapt. Keep moving. Because you never know which opportunity is the one that changes everything.

If you are going through a difficult season right now, please do not give up.

Your current chapter is not your final chapter.

The tears will not last forever.

The losses will not define you.

One day, you will sit somewhere, look back at the photos from your hardest days, and realize they were not evidence that your life was ending,they were evidence that your comeback story was beginning.

Keep going.

Your story is not over yet.

Waiter add Two more on my table, it's Friday.

~Village-based investor (VBI)

11/06/2026

Challenges faced so far in my agriculture journey in The Gambia.

11/06/2026

If wishes were horses, today I could have ridden one home.

Any chance I get, I like visiting farms around The Gambia to see what other farmers are doing. One thing I know, is that no matter how well you think you're doing, there is always someone doing it simpler, cheaper, or even better.

A few years ago, I visited a farmer back home in Kenya who was irrigating his onions using basins irrigation method. Surprisingly, his crop looked much better than many farms using drip irrigation. What amazed me most was not the irrigation method itself, but how differently he reasoned about farming.

Today, I came across another impressive setup. A huge water reservoir that can hold over a million litres ,a big farm and a greenhouse standing beside it. I always salivate for this kind of setups.

I walked around admiring everything,The only thing left for me was to wish it was mine.

~Village-based investor (VBI)

11/06/2026

In my errands today, I stopped by a certain institution to see what they are doing. As I walked around, I came across this interesting vegetable that looks like a white carrot.

Do you know what it's called? Have you ever eaten it? And most importantly, how is it prepared?

Every day is a learning opportunity.

~Village-based investor (VBI)