Oscar Kasirimo is a graduate from Multimedia University holding a degree in Bachelor of Applied Communication.
He is among thousands of Kenyan graduates who fail to secure a job after graduating from university.
It was after tarmacking for a while when he decided to return home and try his luck in farming. Here is his story as told by WoK.
Background
When Kasirimo graduated from university, he had hoped to get a job from well established companies or the county government.
However, his efforts to secure a job bore no fruits forcing him to return home to exploit other available options.
“I had been applying for jobs but unfortunately there were no jobs and so I sat down with my dad and we decided to do farming because we had the resources,” he noted.
At his father’s land in Kajiado County, Kasirimo has mainly focused on cabbages and onions, although he also cultivates maize and tomatoes.
He plants Copenhagen cabbages because they do well in arid and semi-arid areas such as Kajiado.
“We like it because it’s prone to this kind of weather and they don’t get affected by diseases or pests easily and they mature very fast,” he explained.
Kasirimo said it only takes three months for the cabbages to be ready for harvest.
“We normally get an expert from the county government who assist us with planting and the procedure for applying fertilizer,” he said.
While working closely with county government officials, Kasirimo explained that they enjoy perks such as getting pesticides and fertilizers at discounted prices.
“We do weeding after every two weeks, there’s a lot of weed in this farm because we use a lot of natural manure. We get manure from home because we have a lot of cattle and sheep,” he said.
They source water from a borehole which they drilled purposely for farming.
Although they are using electricity to pump water to their farm, Kasirimo said they are considering to go the solar way to get the most out of it.
“We are hoping to install solar panels soon because electricity is really expensive. We hope solar will help us cut the cost,” he said.
Kasirimo sells his cabbages depending on the size; the bigger the cabbage, the higher the price.
“When we started, we were selling locally before we expanded to towns. When we increased production, we started selling at Kitengela and Athi River markets,” he said.
Challenges
While the farmer is successful in his venture, he deals with among other challenges, pests infestation.
The pest infestation is encouraged by the fact that the area is semi-arid.
“Pests thrive in this kind of weather, they really affect us. Wild animals like the rabbits are also a menace in this area,” Kasirimo said.
