Mr. Chelule targets both ripping (2-tine) and chiseling (3-tine) clients by either adding or removing one tine. He decided to lead by example by ripping 4 acres of his own land and has started a campaign against the use of disc ploughs by encouraging other Mechanization Service Providers (MSPs) to “ditch the disc”.
In Njoro sub-county, Nakuru County, John Kuria, a Farmer Sevice Center (FSC) in Piave village, had to rely on a Mechanization Service Provider (Mr. Turungi) who would travel long distances from Rongai sub-county to offer services to his farmers. Due to the high demand for ripping services in Rongai Sub County, Mr. Turungi was unable to also offer ripping services to all John Kuria’s farmers in Piave, resulting in them resorting to cultivating their land using a disc plough.
After attending a Conservation Agriculture (CA) training session organized by PAFID Agribusiness Coordinator and FSC John Kuria, Mr. Vincent Chelule, a long-term MSP, recognized the increased business opportunity in offering CA minimum tillage over disc ploughing. Unable to raise the capital to buy a new ripper he decided to fabricate a 3-tine ripper.
Participatory Approached for Integrated Development (PAFID), is an implementing partner of the Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA). FtMA is a consortium of six agri-focused organizations (AGRA, Bayer, Rabo Bank, Syngenta, WFP and Yara) that came together to walk the journey with smallholder farmers from land preparation up to the market.
Mr. Chelule assembling scrap metal for fabricating minimum tillage equipment to help farmers adopt Conservation Agriculture
On 24th March 2022 the FtMA field team, together with FSC John Kuria, assessed and tested the ripper which performed satisfactorily. By fabricating his own ripper, Mr. Chelule considerably reduced the capital cost of purchasing a new ripper.