The New Farmers Helping Farmers Goat Team

 By Glenna McGregor

Goats navigating the aggressive thorns of the acacia bushes to eat the highly nutritious green leaves.

    This year Farmers Helping Farmers is adding small ruminants, in particular dairy goats, to its Gender Responsive One Health program. Goats are an important livestock species in Meru, Kenya, particularly in the semi-arid areas where the goats are one of the only livestock species that thrive in the dry conditions. Most of the goats here are raised in pastoral systems and are taken out to graze by their owners for many hours every day. Goats are browsers, using their highly mobile upper lip to pick the best of all the food available, this makes them highly  effective at eking good nutrition even amongst the sparse and generally very prickly plants. In Meru goats are milked, primarily for home consumption, as well as sold for meat and their manure used or sold for fertilizer. 

 

Thus far during our time on the goat project we’ve done many farm visits to try to get a better understanding of how goats are raised in Meru, the challenges that Farmers Helping Farmers could help with, common disease challenges, and areas where increased training would be helpful. While on farm we treat animals that are ill, discuss problems the farmers are facing, do health assessments on several animals in the herd and discuss any herd health problems we discover. Common issues we have come across include goitre from iodine deficiency, and abscesses, likely due to caseous lymphadenitis.

Goitre, an enlarged thyroid gland due to an iodine deficiency is common finding on many of our farm visits. The swelling in the neck just below the jaw is the large thyroid gland. 

On farm we often deworm the goats, which is a good opportunity to demonstrate how to estimate animal weight and discuss proper medication dosing and administration.

Bernard demonstrating appropriate medication drenching technique

We’ve done multiple seminars discussing zoonotic diseases, in particular brucellosis, anthrax and more general disease.

One of many seminars for a women's group. Bernard the Farmers Helping Farmer’s small ruminant paravet always leads an engaging seminar with lots of laughter and learning.

The longer term plan is to create a dairy goat manual and for Bernard, Farmer’s Helping Farmer’s goat paravetextraordinaire, to do frequent training on various goat production topics to the women’s groups.

A post-mortem examination on a goat that died the day before our farm visit. Cause of death was Haemonchosis (infection with large numbers of blood-sucking intestinal worms resulting in death due to blood 

This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is made possible with funding from Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International

 

One Health in Action: Caring Across Species

 By: Emma Adams, Carissa Grove, and Hannah Quilty

    Week 2 of the Dairy Health rotation started at full speed. The three of us took a “divide and conquer" approach, each heading out with a different team into the field, one with kuku (poultry), one with ng’ombe (dairy), and one with punda (donkeys). The plan for the week was to gain more exposure to the different projects happening with FHF, before coming back together on Wednesday for our first ever FHF One Health clinic.

 

    With the poultry team, we each spent some time learning from Dr. Bowes about reportable avian diseases, the common conditions being seen in Kenya, and how to carry out thorough coop evaluations in the field (see photo), including the key parameters assessed during these visits (nesting box side, material, hanging enrichment, water and feed access). Most of the coop evaluations were done in Nkando on some of the rockiest roads imaginable; at times, it felt less like fieldwork and more like we were test-driving a rover on Mars. All in all, we had a clucking good time!

A typical chicken coop

     Wednesday this week was a whirlwind day of education, nutrition, cows, and some singing at the first-ever Farmers Helping Farmers One Health Clinic. Held in Muruguma, the clinic housed tented displays for education on poultry and small ruminant husbandry, nutrition, first-aid, and a station providing blood pressure monitoring. Along the roadside was a vaccination station where dog-owners could bring their dogs for rabies vaccination and farmers could have their cattle dewormed, vaccinated for Anthrax, Blackquarter (AKA Blackleg), Lumpy Skin Disease, and BVD, as well as seen and treated by veterinary volunteers (see photo of cow and photo of calf). We even had one of AVC’s alumni, Dr. Daniel Muasyawho is now a professor at the University of Nairobi, join us for the fun. Visited by women’s groups, farmers, and their families, the clinic provided a one-of-a-kind opportunity to focus on the health of people, animals, and the environment through a single lens. Over 40 dogs and 300 head of cattle passed through, bringing with them many curious visitors from the community, and a chance to share the One Health message across the Naari Dairy area.  

Carissa with Daniel pregnancy checking a cow

    It was a busy clinic week as we also had a donkey health clinic in Machaka on Thursday(see photo). The donkeys here are used for work and are seen hauling carts to and from the forest. They stopped by throughout the day, often on their way home from a hard-day's work to receive rabies and tetanus vaccinations, and dewormer. If owners had other concerns, we would assess them at this time and provide any additional care that we could. In addition to this, welfare assessments were performed as part of an ongoing project, and we got to see the newest version of the cart and harnesses in action. What shocked us the most about the clinic was that we had just as many dogs show-up to get rabies vaccines as we did donkeys. All-in-all a very successful day with over 120 animals vaccinated!

Donkeys waiting for their turn at the donkey clinic

    Having spent the past few days focused on our work throughout Meru, it’s hard to believe that two weeks have gone by already! We’re learning so much, both through our professors and Kenyan mentors, and from the locals we’ve met along the way. They’re teaching us new Swahili phrases every day, and our vocabulary has improved greatly since just last week! With only one week to go until our departure, we’ve been savouring the Kenyan sun (and lathering on as much sunscreen as humanly possible). There’s still more work to be done, more farms to be seen, and many more mangoes to be eaten. Until next week, Tatuonane (see you later)!

The three dairy girls with an adorable calf
 

Xoxo, 

The Dairy Girls 

Vet Student Team

This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is made possible with funding from Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International

Protect Your Donkey and Your Donkey Will Protect You

 By Emily Czerwinski

Time sure does fly when you are busy! It has been an action packed week here in Kenya with walk in clinics being hosted daily in various areas for the ntigiri (donkeys in Kimiru). Mondays clinic was a memorable one in Muruguma market, where along with the usual rabies and tetanus vaccines, deworming, teeth floating and hoof trimming drive through, we were able to identify and begin treating some sick donkeys in the area. One in particular who appears to be suffering from aspiration pneumonia secondary to dysphagia has been on our treatment list all week - visiting each morning before continuing on with our day. His owner is known throughout the community for caring for his donkeys diligently.

On Tuesday we headed to Miugune where Dr. Anya and I treated 50 donkeys and vaccinated 15 dogs for rabies over the course of the day. Dr. Martha continued to workshop the donkey cart and harness project while completing welfare assessments with Dr. Josephat. The phrase of the day was pole-pole (slowly in Swahili) as we worked to educate donkey owners on “less is more” when it comes to donkey and dog handling.

clinic day in Miugune

Back to donkeys on Thursday, we headed to Machaka a little forestry village where the donkeys are primarily used for hauling wood from the forest into town. Our clinic was set up in the shade on the forest edge which provided a wonderful breeze most of the day. 

clinic day in Machaka

With the help of the whole student team we were able to vaccinate and treat 65 donkeys and vaccinate 67 dogs, our biggest clinic day yet! One of the biggest successes from the day was getting to see the new and improved donkey cart and harnessing trucking around for most of the day. With new breeching added and a different attachment across the chest and shoulders, our demo donkeys drew lots of interest from the donkey owners in the area. It has been so cool to see the huge improvements in harnessing here over the last week.

a young puppy we vaccinated

    This weekend was our recharge weekend but before leaving on Friday, the donkey team spent a hot morning working on our sewing skills to build more harnessing and breeching. Our goal for the upcoming week is to have three new sets of harnesses attached to the carts in different villages with the hopes of setting up harnessing workshop days to follow.

new harness with breeching out for a spin 

Asante sana for your continued support of FHF so we can continue our projects here in Kenya,

Emily

This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is partially funded by Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International and partially through the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre of the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island.

 

Visit to Kangai Kananga Womens Group February 7, 2026

 By Teresa Mellish

    Last week, Ken, Gikundi and I visited some members of the Kangai Kananga Womens Group. We were looking forward to visiting them since they are new partners in the GROH project and we haven’t gotten to know them well yet. 

    All members of the Kangai Kanangya Womens group we visitedwere harvesting greens, like kale,  from their grow bags.  The said it was especially important to have the greens to feed their grandchildren. 

All members had some water in their water tanks harvested from rainfall.

    Helen, the first woman we visited had less water in her tank because she had a smaller house and thus had less gutters to harvest the rain water into her tank.

   Catherine, the second woman had a new house with more gutters and her tank was ¾ full. 

She had a donkey cart in her yard which she used to transport water and sell it to her neighbours. 

    The third woman, had a hand dug well on her farm which had salty water.  She was using this water to water her livestock using solar power to pump up the water. 

Over a lovely lunch with the group executive at the fourth home (which included delicious mukimo with goat stew  plus cut-up fruit including mango, oranges and watermelon) we heard their other needs including better stoves which produced less smoke. 

    Regrettably, we only had time to visit four of the forty twomembers. Gikundi told us that all members have grow bags and water tanks and all are suffering from the drought conditions.          Despite the drought, the four women welcomed us warmly. 

The drought is overwhelming. They planted  crops when it rained a couple of months ago and the seed germinated but stopped growing after the rain stopped.  

   

This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is made possible with funding from Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International

From Garden to Plate: A Sustainable Nutrition Journey in Kenya

 By Katie MacNeill

I have been involved with Farmers Helping Farmers for the last four years, and I was excited when given the opportunity to visit Kenya for a third time with the organization. I have been here for almost two weeks now working as a nutrition volunteer alongside James, the community nutritionist in Kenya. Our work’s divided between dairy clubs, women’s groups, and primary schools.

With the schools in previous years, we provided nutrition education to the grade 5 students through nutrition clubs. This year we are changing to teacher-led nutrition education to help our messages reach more individuals and become more sustainable. With this change the teachers will now educate the students on our messages about gardening, hygiene and food safety, protecting zinc and iron in foods, and filling your plate with colour. 

Following the classroom lessons, they will do practical lessons allowing the children to garden many nutritious and easily accessible vegetables, and cook traditional meals while incorporating many of the things they were taught to grow. This will be done using the 4K clubs, which stand for Kuungana, Kunfanya, Kusaidia, Kenya. Translated this means Unite, Act and Help Kenya. These clubs are implemented in schools to help educate children on farming skills, sustainability and entrepreneurship to help fight hunger, improve nutrition and enforce positive attitudes towards agriculture.

We have visited three schools that have implemented this so far. The teachers are confident and thankful that they have the opportunity to take this next step. With the practical lessons starting, the students have shown a great deal of pride in the vegetables they have started to grow along with the recipes and nutrition messages they have been taught. I am excited to see the impact that this change has on the sustainability and reach of nutrition education in primary schools!

 This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is made possible with funding from Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International

Faces from the Field: Reflections of a Volunteer Horticulturalist

    It’s really hard to put into words what we see and feel here in Kenya. It can be challenging to explain to loved ones and colleagues back home, especially as they battle freezing temps and chest-high snow banks. Despite the lovely sunny skies, the days here can be long, especially given the drought conditions much of our project area is facing. Each day the group of us (7 in our house working on different aspects of the project) sit down and have dinner together reflecting on our days, sharing the low moments and the laughs. As the day's reflections come to mind I see the faces of the people we work with; bright and joyful, grateful and generous. So I wanted to share a few snapshots of what I have seen, heard and felt along the way so far! 

  Betty - a very welcoming individual with a gorgeous crop of potatoes started from our clean potato seed project. Showcasing two different plantings, these potatoes will provide both clean, high quality seed and ware potatoes for her hoursehold. Her hard work in the field following the training she received as part of our new potato plantlet program has really paid off! After unearthing some really nice potatoes in the field Betty took us on a tour of the rest of her farm. Proudly showing off her chicken coop and improved chickens; Betty reflected fondly on the chicken training she received from Victoria Bowes last year and spoke of how the chickens brought nutrition for her family and income with the sale of some eggs. She was proud to be a past participant of FHF dairy training, excited to hear of our new small ruminant work and was incredibly grateful for her water tank, the basis of her connection with FHF.

 

   Stephen - the school gardener at King’O primary school. I was blown away by both the quality of the cabbage Stephen was growing and his nearly fluent English! We left Mwenda, our translator and longtime FHF horticulturalist behind to chat with the cookhouse staff, and we took a stroll through Stephen’s FHF sponsored screen house together. We discussed how farming is seemingly easy on paper but much less so in practice. Stephen spoke of Mwenda’s guidance and recommendations as the reason for his incredible garden’s success. Modest as he was, the proof of Stephen and Mwenda’s teamwork is certainly paying off, which I saw first hand amongst the children enjoying their super githeri for lunch - chock full of extra veggies! 

 Pasqualina - one of the cooks at Ruuju primary school wore her FHF hat and jacket with pride as she chopped cowpea leaves to add to the super githeri they were preparing for the students’ lunch. She told me how grateful she was of the knife she was given from nutritionist Colleen Walton on a prior visit from Canada, that it reduced her kitchen prep time. She was excited to hear that Colleen and more of the nutrition team would be returning again in May and was hopeful to be able to participate in more training for their FHF improved cookhouse. 

 Ester - a thoughtful farmer with a gorgeous bougandelia tree and blue shutters I recalled fondly from my last visit to Kenya. Ester is grateful to be an early adopter of the plantlet/rooted apical cuttings she received as part of our clean potato seed project. Despite battling cutworms in part of the field (a challenging pest and a learning opportunity for all of us), Ester was pleased to reveal well-sized, virus free seed potatoes to us. We will carry forward Ester’s learnings to our training sessions with hers and other women’s groups across Meru County in the next couple weeks. These portraits just skim the surface of the smiling faces we encounter as we walk into shambas, school gardens and meet with women’s groups. Every one of them with a story to share of the impact FHF is having. To think, it’s only been one week here! As we gather around the dinner table each night I can’t help but think of all the other faces behind the stories I hear from the others around our dinner table. Then I extrapolate that to include the rest of the group staying elsewhere too, 19 of us total. I’m so grateful to be surrounded by such hardworking, passionate, dedicated people, Kenyan and Canadian alike!  

Asante sana, Kendra

Under the Kenyan Sun with Hooves

By the Vet Student Team

 

The first week in Kenya flew by! There was a lot of time spent talking and learning about the livestock here. Most of our time has been spent between the local donkey and dairy groups in the region, but we have had the opportunity to dabble with the poultry and newly formed small ruminant projects. There are so many different projects going on that it has been nice to get a chance to participate in all aspects of the “boots on the ground”work going on here.

The 4 vet musketeers after the first walk-in clinic

Everyone has been very welcoming, sharing endless mugs of tea, and laughs. We held seminars to share information on cattle and donkey welfare, but to also understand the issues affecting farmers in the region. The dairy team held sessions for two new groups in Kiirua and Ruiri, where we went over six essentials to maximize milk production. Over the next year these groups will continue to meet with Farmers Helping Farmers (FHF) staff covering topics such as nutrition, making silage, cow comfort, and breeding in more detail. At the end of year, we hope farmers will feel better equipped to tackle dairy production in Kenya. 

The donkey seminars consisted of “punda” (donkey) owners who had the opportunity to learn “pressure & release” halter training, a new type of knot to tie their donkeys, as well as an introduction to innovative harness and cart designs focused on donkey welfare.

Happy donkey grazing

To wrap up the week we participated in a whirlwind cattle health clinic in Mbaaria where nearly 500 cattle were vaccinated, dewormed, and treated by the FHF vet team and veterinarians and paravets from Meru County. Ng'ombe (cows in swahili) received anthrax, BVDV, and Lumpy Skin Disease vaccines, while many dogs were dewormed and vaccinated against rabies. The farmers were especially enthusiastic about the anthrax vaccines, as there had been cases in the area not 3 weeks prior. The health clinic included farmers from the surrounding area, some of whom walked with their cows over 5km to attend! We had the opportunity to see some incredibly interesting cases, including East Coast Fever,m Habronemiasis, and Anaplasmosis, as well as participate in their diagnosis and treatment. It was a day of laughter, hard work, and organized chaos under the hot Kenyan sun. 

The organized chaos of the first walk-in clinic

There has been a lot to see outside of seminars and clinic days. There are people transporting goats and furniture on Boda Boda’s, which are Kenyan motorcycle taxis. Baboons on the side of the road, hoping you will toss them a snack. Crops and water being hauled by donkeys and oxen, and mangoes around every corner. Perhaps the most exciting thing we have seen so far are the elephants on the way to and from the office. We are sure that Kenya will continue to surprise us and cannot wait to see what the next two weeks bring!

Sharing the road with two oxen pulling a cart

This important work of Farmers Helping Farmers is made possible with funding from Global Affairs Canada through the Gender Responsive One Health Project with Alinea International