THE BRAINS BEHIND SHAMBA SHAPE UP SHOW

THE BRAINS BEHIND SHAMBA SHAPE UP SHOW

By African Times Special Correspondent (In partnership with CNN)

“Shamba” is Swahili for ‘small farm’ and

farmers are the stars of this hit reality show.

Producer Patricia Gichinga explains the format

of the show, “We travel around looking for

farmers who have problems on their farms.

We go to these farms find out what their

problems are, and we bring in the experts and

teach the farmers how to farm better.
 

When the show launched ten years ago, the

creators claimed it to be the first of its kind in

Africa.

It now reaches an audience of eight

million people across Kenya, Tanzania and

Uganda.
 

CNN follows the show revisiting the first farmer

who appeared on the series.

GeorgeKararu speaks about his experience,

“Shamba Shape Up has been beneficial to me.

I was able to increase my core production quite

a bit.

I was having one cow, today I have quite a

number and I’ve sold quite a number of them.”
 

Kararu has been using the skills Shamba Shape

Up gave him to teach other farmers.

He talks about his initiative, “After getting the

knowledge from the show I founded Desara to

bring other members, other farmers together.

We formed a group that’s a farming group

primarily on daily production and chicken

production and we are doing very well now.”
 

As the show enters production for another

series, Gichinga and the team have identified a

key problem that farmers are facing, climate

change.

Gichinga describes how the show will

address this issue,

“We’ve decided for this year is to do some

special episodes just on climate change

adaptation, so here we are teaching farmers

simple methods and technology that they can

use to adapt.”
 

As well as this climate outreach, the show is

also focused on social outreach.

While the production team is hoping to

encourage more women and young people to

take up farming, Gichinga explains they are also

hoping to reach a different audience,

“We’re very interested in working with the

prisons and we want to put Shamba Shape

Up in all the prisons within Kenya so that

inmates can be able to get some knowledge.

So, once they’re out there, they have some sort

of skills in order to make a living.

And that also helps that they don’t go back to

the bad vices.”
 

Shamba Shake Up aims to help farmers and

support them with useful data that will yield

results.

Gichinga sums up the show’s ethos, “I think our

pride is being able to reach farmers with

information that is timely, that is event based,

and is useful to them.”

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