Sack farmer rakes in fortune growing vegetables.

Francis Ndolo on his farm in Landless estate, Kiambu County. He makes a huge income from sack farming. Many residents living in towns and cities are turning to urban farming to fight poverty, enhance food security and improve environmental sustainability. Major Rt. Rev Francis Mutua Ndolo, 65, is already making a fortune out of it and he says urban farming is becoming a solution to earning a decent living. Sack farming technology allows growing of crops in large, bag-gardens, enabling farmers to grow vegetables such as sukuma wiki, spinach and amaranth on one square metre. The high-yielding sack gardening is an inexpensive but high-yielding food security technology as it maximises land and water use. They are efficient for schools, hospitals, informal settlements and on small-scale farms. The large size vertical bags have holes in them where stem seedlings are planted. They come in small medium and large sizes .He decided to plant spinach only, thanks to its fast maturity period of one month. Eight months later, Ndolo is a happy farmer with leafy spinach in his compound and he says in one day, he makes Sh2,000 selling spinach to neighbours. “If I sell to the market, I make Sh3,000. This translates to about Sh100,000 per month and after deducting expenses, I remain with not less than Sh60,000,” says Ndolo. Ndolo advises urban dwellers to utilize space by trying sack farming. “It will help you save the cost of buying vegetables from markets. I also advise youths to take advantage of this technology to be financially independent and create jobs. He