Abstract:
Farm and Community practice is one of end of BSA year two recess term module in which a student gets attached to the community of his/her choice for eight weeks for the purpose of getting exposed to hands on skills in crop and animal production and management practices within a certain identified community.
This attachment helps the student to learn from the farmers as the farmers learn from the student, the student analyses the community farming practices and systems, identifies the farmers' problems and suggests possible practical solutions with the aim of building students field practical skills.
During the attachment I was exposed to many activities such as visitation to Citrus farmers’ orchards, designing poultry house plan and orientation, formulation of poultry training manual, training farmers on water conservation measures, citrus / mango production and management techniques, visitation to piggery farmers, Aquaculture, attending to technical and council meetings at the sub county, reception of mango and orange seedlings and distribution to the farmers to mention but a few. All these was with the objective of;
• Providing technical advice to community
• Enabling a two way learning avenue for the student and the community on different agricultural skills and practices
• Assessing fanners progress as well as investigating community problems pertaining crop and animal production and management practices
• Giving possible practical solutions to the problems detected
By the end of this farm and community practice attachment I was able to;
• Demonstrate the different agricultural skills learnt from the field
• Provide technical advice to the farmers in the community
• Interact with the farmers and assess their farming problems and suggest solutions to the possible problems.
Conclusively farm and community practice is a very Informative and educative program that exposes the student to a lot of practical hands on skills which supplements the class theoretical literature, this module therefore deserves credit since it helps build the student understanding of the community.
