How do farmers define sustainability on their farms? Find out how Global Farmer Network member Felix Kili views the issue, and how he manages to balance sustainability with the challenges he faces on his farm in this video by CropLife International.
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The farm has its own silos and maize mill. It’s widely known in the country, standing out for its mechanization and technology advances. These advancements influence many other farmers. The farm offers quarterly field days with local farm input suppliers to educate farmers around them on sustainable farming practices.
As rainfall has become less reliable, the farm implemented minimum tillage to preserve soil moisture. Soil improvements have increased returns for the farm. Yields used to average 7.8 tons of maize/hectare and now it’s more in the range of 9.2 tons/hectare. This happened while the farm has reduced costs for fertilizer, machinery, labor, and fuel.
Felix Kili
Felix Kili is a second generation cereals farmer and a graduate in agricultural engineering. He grows 600 hectares of maize, barley and wheat and canola using minimum till technology with an eye toward no-till farming. The farm uses a crop rotation and plants sun hemp, sunflower and canola as cover crops. All farm operations are mechanized and include GPS.The farm has its own silos and maize mill. It’s widely known in the country, standing out for its mechanization and technology advances. These advancements influence many other farmers. The farm offers quarterly field days with local farm input suppliers to educate farmers around them on sustainable farming practices.
As rainfall has become less reliable, the farm implemented minimum tillage to preserve soil moisture. Soil improvements have increased returns for the farm. Yields used to average 7.8 tons of maize/hectare and now it’s more in the range of 9.2 tons/hectare. This happened while the farm has reduced costs for fertilizer, machinery, labor, and fuel.