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Where we do it > Kenya - Robin Bacon

Name: Robin Bacon
Position: Horticultural Manager, Appropriate Grass Roots Intervention (AGRI)
Location: Eldoret, Kenya

The impact of VSO volunteer Robin Bacon is being felt close-up in Kenya. Robin helps manage fifteen farms in the seven districts of Kenya. The teams on the farms feed over 15,000 patients daily through a combination of perishable goods being produced by the horticultural unit as well as donations.

The problem faced by many communities in Kenya is not only getting access to good nutritional produce such as fruit and vegetables, and the all-important maziwa lala – a soured milk drink containing vital nutrients to aid anti-retroviral drugs which are used to keep people living with HIV healthy, but also ensuring a ready supply of these goods.

Appropriate Grass Roots Intervention (AGRI) is a community-based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that aims to provide food security for community members living with HIV & AIDS. Programmes include farming partnerships; education and awareness building activity; counselling and support services and school-based activities.

Robin Bacon went to Kenya on 26 October 2005, disillusioned with food production in the UK – in his words, ‘I wanted to grow food where it mattered. I wanted to see if the experience and knowledge I’d built up in the UK could be transferred to an entirely different and more challenging situation.’

‘I felt it was important to use the skills I had acquired as a horticultural manager, not just to produce a commodity. Here we’re doing something really worthwhile that will increase the quality of people’s lives.’

Robin works with Appropriate Grassroots Intervention (AGRI) as a project coordinator paying particular attention to increasing production. His job works in two separate ways: long term and day-to-day. For the long term he advises Kenyan staff and managers as to what to grow, how to grow it and he encourages them to learn and experiment. On a daily basis he helps with the running of some of the sites – this includes encouraging better time-keeping practises and maintaining the workplace.

AGRI also aims to promote self-sufficiency amongst the community. ‘We endeavour to do this in the programme by looking at self-sustaining crops and subsistence crops for nutrition as well as looking at promoting yields to a place where there is a portion of that crop to sell. This means growing alternative crops – maybe passion fruit or soya beans – that will meet your nutritional need and produce an excess to sell.’

‘I think a lot of the benefits and income generation will come in good practice of knowing how to cultivate the land and applying this in the community: which fertilisers to use, how to use compost, good techniques of spraying without too much intervention from strong…poisons.’

Frieda, a site manager of one of the farms points out the impact Robin’s work with AGRI has had: ‘I’ve benefited a lot from working with Robin. He’s made us plan things – the work to be done every day so that it gets done to schedule. He’s also shown us management skills: how to approach the workers, how to approach people and how to plan the job. What’s really important is that Robin’s a member of AGRI. We had no inner knowledge of the department and how to prepare land and cultivate soil. We also had big problems with crop rotation, types of crop to plant and a pest problem. Robin, who is qualified in horticultural farming has helped with all of these.’

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