 Land in antiquity has been a great problem facing farmers all over the world. However, with the emergence of new farming methods and technological innovations, farmers in the livestock sector can now produce fodder for their animals, requiring no land to till. Here is how. Of growing plants without the use of soil, this technology is old as history and was used in famous hanging gardens of Babylon for komashu purposes to feed livestock. It started in 1960s in Australia and has spread to the rest of the world ever since. This is done by physically feeding their plants with water that not only ensures the germination and growth of quality plants, but also greatly increase the speed at which they germinate. This method of farming is mainly used in the livestock rearing as Mahindra Shal the director of Liwe Commodities Limited puts it. He says the system suits best farmers who do not have enough land for production of livestock feeds. This hydroponic machine is a fodder manufacturing machine from Maze and it's an innovative thing that reduces the requirement of land and give nutritious food to our livestock and in particular cows, goats and pigs. In addition, the system is more viable as compared to land giving 10 to 15 per cent milk production while it uses low power consumption and 200 to 300 litres of water therefore giving value addition to milk production. This machine has got only single phase connection which is normally a fridge would take so it is a single phase power consuming around 6 to 8 units per day 24 hours and particularly with this unit the smallest size in our series consumes only 250 to 300 litres of water. With this machine not only we get green fodder which is very nutritious for the livestock particularly cows it had but it's give value addition in milk production up to 10 to 15 per cent milk produced by them will be extra. Manan Patel, the Managing Director of the Lewis Commodities Limited says the basic principle of this method is to maintain the atmosphere of the seeds so that the fodder may achieve optimum growth. Basically this is a hydroponic technology. The basic principle is to maintaining the atmosphere such that it can get the optimum growth of the fodder. What we are we are controlling inside is temperature humidity and water that we are controlling inside the cabinet and the cabin is a 60 mm thickness insulated where it cannot differentiate the temperature from outside and inside it can maintain the temperature continuously maintain the temperature inside. To get the desired product the maize seed which is most suitable as compared to within this technology is soaked 6 to 8 hours to achieve germination rate of 80 per cent. Yeah first day it's like you have to take the maize like local one where you can get it everywhere don't need to any like certified seed you require it's a local seed required whereas the germination rate has to be more than 80 percent that is the main requirement of this unit and what you have to first you have to soak the seed for almost 6 to 8 hours and you have to put it inside the unit on first day. Second day you you have to shift that tray on the next level of the rack and every day you have to do it like this after after seven day complete on eight day you have to remove the fodder from the bottom of the rack and take the fodder out and just clean that tray and put once again that seed and put it inside the unit that is what you have to do we can save for one person it will take hardly two to three hours for this shifting of tray and the cleaning of the unit. The machine used in this system does not require any advanced skill to operate since it's a complete automatic system making it easier to be operated by any farmer however during the installation time farmers are trained on basic operational systems it is you don't have to require any technician it's a completely automatic system whatever is there it's automatically turning on and off it's you just require any person it's a we can say lemon person it can be managed easily any farmer can be managed easily see at the time of installation we generally we train them what to do or want not to do it is every part is local made even any farmer can maintain that unit maintain we can say maintenance is we cannot say zero but it's very low Patricia Lukas who is the manager of the newest commodity is limited alludes confidence that if the farmers embrace this new technology we shall have more production in the livestock sector hence boosting our economy yeah you see most of the parts of Kenya we have this problem of the droughts so we are sure if this machines uh if most of the farmers bring this machines into the country we'll be able to get the fodder so by that you're going to improve the country's economy much in Durango a farmer from neary county sees he engaged himself with the troponic system because Kenya is plagued by a low production of fodder uh the reason as to why i engage myself in hydroponics is because in Kenya there is a big challenge of fodder uh shortage of fodder and through hydroponics production of fodder through hydroponics you are guaranteed of a constant supply of fodder uh we have a fodder supply all throughout the year he finds the method very economical since it's a soulless system where you only need hydroponic units is a soulless technology and through this we just have all you need it to have mature seeds seeds that have matured those seeds are the ones that you use and put in a hydroponics unit that they will germinate and the only thing that they need in that unit is only moisture so you just need water and the seeds and that's all and after seven days you are able to harvest the the fodder Martin adds that the system translates to more milk production as compared to the conventional way since there's reduced cost of production and calls on all livestock farmers to embrace this technology i find it is quite economical when i try and look at it when i used to do it in the conventional way of growing fodder through hydroponics it's easy it's not labor intensive and uh it's quite cheap and it takes a shorter period of time so one thing that it takes care about is when you look at the scarcity of land in our country for dairy farmers that is one of the biggest challenges so you are able to produce a lot of fodder whereby you don't have that big huge chunk of land so that is one of the biggest advantages that i have found in hydroponic actually what i would tell young people who want to engage in dairy farming or generally practicing agriculture there are so many opportunities in agriculture and dairy farming is one of them when you employ new technologies like hydroponics it becomes even much easier and you're able to make a lot of money with no with uh with no much effort or with no much labor hydroponics technology can be adopted using locally available materials to control temperature there by making hydroponic forming a reality a farmer can construct a three meter by four meter house unit which can support to feed dairy cows interestingly the amount of fodder from this unit is equivalent to two acres of napier grass dereva hilawi for i-254 news there you have it soil is farming all the way for your farm or farming produce and livestock coming up next is waimashawiki i'll be seeing you again next week on monday until then have yourself a very good night and wonderful week ahead good bye