Scrapheap Challenge

Our project, Scrapheap Challenge has been put together to cover all the ideas and prototypes that have been designed to make low-technology equipment largely from scrap or discarded materials.

So far, we have:

• Water filter and purifier
• Methane collector (with fertiliser by-product as a bonus)
  
• Rainwater collection
• Cheap bio-diesel
• Hydrogen cell

All these systems will be built and tested at out River Cottage Kenya plot in Kisii - as soon as we have funds to carry out this work.

When we have proved that they work, with tweeking as needed, their concepts will be passed on to other NGOs and communities throughout Kenya and further on, depending upon how successful we are in promoting them (and us!).

You can help by spreading the word and/or making a donation using the PayPal button on the right.

Please, please help us.

River Cottage, Kenya

The River Cottage project at KCIS has a plot in Kisii, on which we are going to grow food for the Twiga Children's Home. Presently, we have bananas, pineapples and avocados, and we will be looking at alternatives to the usual crops grown in the area. We will be trying out keyhole gardening and other high yield ideas.

I am also hoping that we can form a pool, fed by the river, to raise Tilapia fish, which are fast-breeding and very good to eat.

Any surplus food will be sold to put some money into the KCIS fund.

The older children at Twiga are raring to get started although clearing the plot and preparing the land for crop growing is going to be quite a task.

We will be using fertiliser produced by our methane generator (see Scrapheap Challenge)

Kenya to declare food emergency

Here we go again!!

The BBC reports that the Kenyan Government is to declare a national emergency due to drought.

President Mwai Kibaki's government warned that nearly 10 million people - more than a quarter of the population - were at risk from food shortages.

But even where food is in reasonable supply, prices have already shot through the roof during the past couple of months and we are struggling to feed our kids, despite the fact that Kisii is situated in one of the most fertile areas of Kenya, supply and demand, I suppose.

Food shortages are believed to be caused also by suppliers hoarding, forcing the prices up - some people are willing to make a quick buck out of other people's suffering - not just in Kenya, but the world over.

We need help to buy food and also to get the River Cottage Kenya farm up and running. I am sure that we could be self-sufficient by this time next year with a little help.

Can you help us? Do you know someone who can?

Next trip to Kenya

It rather looks like I will be returning to Kenya at the beginning of January - and about time too!

As soon as I have got Christmas over and done with, I will be on my way, or at least, that's the plan - probably leaving here on 6th January.

Of course, funding comes into play - I think I have just about enough to get me there and back, and survive whilst I am there as long as I am careful.

I will be going straight to Kisii where I will start setting up the River Cottage and Scrapheap Challenge projects, as well as looking at the possibility of farming Tilapia, a type of fresh-water fish that thrives in Kenya.

Then there is the push to combat malaria. There are many ways to fight malaria and we willb e looking at many of them.

Somehow, I have got to find the time and money to travel across Kenya to the coast to see my significant other and children - it's a tough life but someone has to do it.

River Cottage, Kenya

In the UK, we are plagued by "celebrity chefs", on the TV in particular.

For those of you who do not receive UK TV, the programmes started many years ago with Fanny Craddock, with her husband Johnny, knocking up braised pheasant with truffles and the like.

These days, the programmes are far more diverse, with a couple of chefs advocating healthy food, "back to basics", fair trade, etc. I have no problem with this. In fact, I passively support the ideals, if only they didn't cost so much more than factory-produced plastic food.

One celebrity in particular, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, started living at his weekend cottage, growing his own fruit and veg, and with the addition of animals, soon became self-sufficient.

He expanded and now has a farm in Devon, River Cottage HQ, as well as a city farm in Bristol.

So where is this blog going? Well, I reckon that what I want to do on my (as yet theoretical) model shamba is pretty much what HF-W is doing in England. So I am pinching the name River Cottage and calling my shamba "River Cottage, Kenya". There is a cottage on the plot, there is a river running past it and it is in Kenya, so why not?

Before HF-W became a celebrity chef, he worked in conservation in Africa, although I cannot find out more details. Maybe he will hear about River Cottage, Kenya. Then he can either ignore it, sue me, or help out. I would prefer the last - but any publicity is good publicity - so they say.