By Joshua Kato
Sustaining a farm financially is one of the toughest tasks and unless a farm has a consistent enterprise that makes money, meeting financial obligations, such as paying workers can be a challenge.
Some of the enterprises that can guarantee daily cash flow, include chicken layers and dairy cows. Once layers start producing, the cycle runs through almost two years, before they stop.
By this time, a farmer has added another cycle. Dairy cows produce milk for 300 days, after delivery.
This means that if a farmer has more than one cow, it is likely he will have some money coming in each day. Pigs can also bring in daily income depending on the size of the herd.
With a large stock of say 10 sows, a farmer can have piglets for sale every month throughout the year. A big herd of goats and vegetables can also give monthly , income.
However, there are annual crops like coffee and fruits that have one major season and a small one. Unless farmers plan well, the farm suffers financially during mid-season.
The advice is to practice inter-cropping. If coffee is inter-cropped with matooke, a farmer will consistently sell the matooke as they wait for the larger income from coffee.
