Commitment to Supporting Farmers

We realize the important role livestock farmers provide in preserving and conserving native grasslands in Kinangop. We shall continue working with sheep farmers to encourage and educate them how to optimally manage sheep to ensure increased income at the household level while at the same time taking care of nature. By providing a market for the wool produced by the farmers, we ensure that less grasslands are converted into cropland, actions which destroy the natural habitat for specialized grassland birds like Sharpe’s Longclaw.

Sheep for Longclaw

Njabini Wool Crafters Crafters is a conservation tool for a local conservation community based organization, the Friends of Kinangop Plateau (FoKP). Started as a loose group of enthusiastic wool spinners and weavers is now fully cooperative society that is very committed to conserve the Kinangop Highland Grasslands and empower the local youths with skills and opportunity to contribute in conservation and community development.

Sheep for longclaw is a smart and very successful initiative started by Samuel Bakari and Mercy Nyambura in 2013. In South Kinangop, sheep for loncglaw is led by Mercy and is supported by the Rufford Small Grants while in North Kinangop, the initiate is led by Samuel Bakari with support from Mohamed bin Zayeed Species conservation Fund.

The model is pegged on the understanding that sheep farming, as a traditional farming practice in Kinangop, has held retain the grasslands for many decades since human settlement in these highland grassland. Unfortunately, the collapses of supporting facilities in early and mid 1990s led to a big shift from the livestock farming, largely sheep rearing, to crop cultivation. Unfortunately, crop cultivation in the highlands is more vulnerable to high frequency of frosts and is provides high risk. Livestock farming is less risky and is not affected by the high frequency of frost and low temperatures. Poor market performance of livestock products for a long time has discouraged farmers. While market performance is slowly improving, the quality of farm animals has continued to deteriorate for a long time, largely as a result of poor management practices, sheep inbreeding, deworming and housing being the main ones.

Sheep for Longclaw addresses this perennial challenges through providing farmers with information sheep breed improvement, housing and deworming. As a means of demonstrating the potential impact on these interventions, NWC through the Sheep for Longclaw project has so far offered 20 high quality breeding rums to twenty (20) farmers, build two (2) housing demonstration units in two farms, and carried out a one year deworming pilot study in five (5) farms. Sheep for Longclaw is a very successful tool and the County Government of Nyandarua is keen to borrow from the model and expand the outreach across the county, whose more than 80% of households has sheep.