Establishment of 7 seedling Nurseries, 7 Greenhouses and 7 Open Drip-irrigation fitted Demos for the Horticulture for Growth Project: in 7 counties

1.0 About Solidaridad

Solidaridad Network is an international solution-oriented civil society organization working through eight regional expertise centres to transform markets to make them more sustainable and inclusive. Our eight regional expertise centres include Asia, Eastern and Central Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, Southern Africa, South America, West Africa and our global Secretariat in the Netherlands. Solidaridad Eastern and Central Africa, one of the regional centers, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya with country offices and programmes in Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. We bring together supply chain players and engage them with innovative solutions to improve production, ensuring the transition to a sustainable and inclusive economy that maximizes the benefit for all. We facilitate strengthening of local capacity in developing countries, support the creation of enabling environments for economies to thrive, and improve market access.

For more information, please refer to http://www.solidaridadnetwork.org

The Horticulture for growth project (H4G)

The Horticulture for Growth project (H4G project): Promoting Horticulture Enterprise Development in Kenya is a 3-year project targeting small holder farmers in 7 Counties (Kirinyaga, Makueni, Laikipia, Bomet, Elgeyo Marakwet, Nakuru and Nyandarua) in Kenya. The goal of the action is to improve livelihoods (food security and income), resilience and business case development for small holder farmers. This will be achieved by the promotion of the use of improved horticultural crop production technologies, regenerative farming practices, address challenges related to access to finance and quality farm inputs and services, market access and enabling policy environment.

The project overall objective is to improve livelihoods (food security and income), resilience and business case development of 30,000 horticulture smallholder farming households in Kenya

2.1 Background

About 80% of the population of Kenya lives in the rural areas and derive their livelihood largely from agriculture. But more important is the fact that 56% of the Kenyan people live below the poverty line with over 80% of these in the rural areas. Women are generally poorer than men and suffer more severely from the impacts of economic downturn. 52.5% of Kenyan males in the rural areas and 49.2% of those in urban areas live below the poverty line. In both instances the statistics for females is higher; 54.1% of rural and 63.0% of urban women live below the poverty line. The horticulture sector is the third most important foreign exchange earner after coffee and tea and is often viewed as a growth engine of the economy. The sector is dominated by smallholder farmers who account for about 80% and produce about 55% of the total exports.

Kenya’s agriculture is largely dependent on seasonal rainfall. In many instances, the frequency of rainfall has not been adequate to sustain crop production, leading to serious food insecurity and losses in the country. Estimates available indicate that about 50.6% of the Kenyan people lack access to adequate food The incidence and prevalence of food insecurity is more severe in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs). Hence, in order to have secured food production, there is a need to minimize dependence on rain-fed agriculture by utilizing water resources for irrigation under sustainable environmental management. In this context, the Government of Kenya formulated the Strategy for Revitalizing Agriculture 2004 – 2014 (SRA) towards the implementation of the Economic Recovery Strategy (ERS). The strategy envisages increased agricultural productivity, including diversification into high value horticultural crops for the export market and domestic market, thereby economically empowering the poor farmers, and generally reducing the number of people suffering from hunger, famine or starvation.

The horticulture for growth project aims at generating a sustainable and inclusive horticulture value chain that guarantees improved productivity, safe working conditions, enhanced job creation, access to finance, enabling business environment, and access to markets for smallholder horticulture farmers in Kenya. The factors put together will lead to improved livelihoods amongst the 30,000 direct beneficiaries in the agreed counties.

Assignment Objective:

The objective of the assignment includes:

The objective of this assignment is guided by the impacts of climate change that are already widespread and the consequences have been witnessed all around the world. Any fluctuations in temperature, rainfall, humidity, soil nutrients, moisture, sunlight, aeration and soil temperature have a direct impact on the growth and productivity of crops and plants. Hence, adaptation of mitigation strategies involving actions to reduce global warming is an important option to overcome the impact of climate variations on coffee production. In this regard, the H4G project is promoting climate-smart technologies and seeks to construct and establish of 7 drip irrigation demonstrations sites in a 1/8 of an acre, 7 modern shade net seedlings nurseries and 7 greenhouses measuring 8m*15m in the proposed project sites in order to realize the desired outcomes and impact from the project results framework.

The aim of this TOR is to install 7 new greenhouses, 7 new drip irrigation demonstrations in a 1/8 of an acre and 7 new modern shade net seedlings nurseries and installation of irrigation systems that are suitable to each greenhouse, nursery demo site.

2.5 Responsibilities of the Service Provider /Scope of Work:

The service provider will be primarily responsible for:

● Set up 7 shade net seedling nursery, 7 greenhouse and 7 open drip demos construction and to the satisfaction of Solidaridad across the 7 counties (Makueni, Kirinyaga, Laikipia,Nyandarua, Nakuru, Bomet and Elgeyo Marakwet) in a period of 2 months and asper specifications provided in Annex A below.

● Train and support the beneficiaries on all the good practices, innovations and climate smart technologies being promoted as well as management of each hardware (nursery, greenhouse, drip demos) during the establishment phase.

● Provide the training module for each hardware (nursery, greenhouse, drip demos) to the beneficiaries on the practices that will be carried out in the hardwares post-construction and establishment.

● Carry out at 2 follow up and monitoring visits for each of the hardware (Nursery, greenhouse and drip demos) in the subsequent 4 months post set-up for assessment on seedlings set up.

● Submit a final report compiled version of the report in electronic version in word format to the project after incorporating the feedback and suggestions from Solidaridad.

Coordination and Cooperation

● The Consultant undertaking the assignment will work under the coordination of Solidaridad (ECA).

● Solidaridad will source seeds and inputs used for planting on each nursery, greenhouse and open drip demos.

2.7 Expert/Consultant’s

Develop a comprehensive expression of interest (E.O.I) outlining:

• A short profile of the firm/consultant, including photos of previous work.

• Firm/Consultants statement on the interpretation of the TOR, methodology of execution, work plan and budget.

• A detailed work plan for the work.

• A detailed diagrammatic layout and designs for the hardware (nursery, greenhouses and open drip demos)

• At least a references of similar assignments undertaken in the last 3 years

• It is desirable if the consultant/firm has previous experience in setting-up and managing nurseries, greenhouses and drip irrigation systems.