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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