An Introduction to Baraka Agricultural College, Kenya
Correspondent: Tony Dolan
Br Tony is the principal of Baraka Agricultural College in Molo, Kenya. The college was initially established as a Farmers Training Centre in 1974 by the Catholic Diocese of Nakuru to respond to the training needs of the newly settled smallholder farmers in Rift Valley Province.
Modern communication technology gives us the opportunity to communicate with you directly through the Gorta website. From Baraka, we will give you a general overview of what Baraka Agricultural College is about and how you and Gorta have been our major partner over many years.
Baraka was established as a Farmers Training Centre (FTC) in 1974 to respond to the training needs of the newly settled smallholder farmers in Rift Valley Province. In the early years the emphasis was on training in conventional high external input/high output agriculture. However, with the rapidly changing demographic situation - the population of Kenya was eight million at independence in 1963, today it is thirty two million) – it became obvious that this type of training was not responding to the needs of small-holder framers.
From the mid-eighties the concept ‘sustainable agriculture’ evolved. In the early nineties this concept was extended to include ‘rural development’ and the centre was renamed Baraka Agricultural College. Today Baraka is the main institution in Eastern Africa promoting ‘sustainable agricultural and rural development’ (SARD). We are convinced that SARD is the most appropriate development strategy to respond to realities of Eastern Africa where 80% of the people still live in rural areas and 60% of those live in absolute poverty.
The vision of Baraka is for rural communities in Eastern Africa in which people live in dignity and in harmony with their environment and God. The mission of the college is to promote SARD through dialogue, participatory education, training and research.
Gorta Partnership:
Gorta has been a major partner of Baraka Agricultural College from the late 1970s to date. This partnership has been effective in establishing one of the finest and most appropriate education and training centres in Africa. Over the years Gorta has supported the improvement of college infrastructure and also financed personnel. In recent years the Gorta Scholarship Scheme has been a very effective and innovative way of empowering rural communities of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
Each year the scheme allows communities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to send one woman and one man for the CSARD course and to support them working for their community for one year after graduation. This is highly cost effective way of empowering communities from within. Most of these communities have no access to government development services.
We, the staff and students of Baraka Agricultural College, Molo, Kenya send best wishes to all in Gorta, our friends in Ireland and our friends all around the world.
