Featured Partner: Palma Nursery
Two of our local community partners are Paul and Mary Mwanza from Palma Nursery in Makueni County. They supplied us with 12,000 seedlings during the long rains season in 2021 - primarily endangered Melia Volkensii seedlings or as its locally known, Mukau.
Mary and Paul Mwanza
Paul and Mary began as smallholder farmers on their local family farm. Mary shared, “We used to plant trees on our farm because we love trees. As we progressed, farmers around started seeing our success with the trees and asked if they could share in the seedlings. When we started sharing seedlings - that was when Palma Nursery began.”
They first started working with 5 different farmer cooperatives and that grew to 20 groups as farmers from other areas became interested in their seedlings. Eventually the demand for seedlings was higher than they could provide so they decided to concentrate on growing seedlings as a business.
By 2018, they received support from a local NGO to register Palma Nursery with KEFIS to provide both forest and horticultural seedlings. They currently produce over 100,000 seedlings per year, planted during the 2 rainy seasons. They also train student interns in the nursery business. Paul shared, “We train the students on seed selection and nursery activities to motivate them to like agriculture. Before they go home, we give them a tree each day. They become farmers before the month is out.”
They are most proud of their high quality seedlings. Mary said, “We have a 90% survival rate and we don’t have any complaints from the farmers. Last October, we planted 10,000 seedlings and all of them were successful.” They account for their successes because they source high quality, but expensive, certified seeds and their careful nurturing of the seedlings.
During COVID, Paul and Mary decided to give back to their local community and coordinated with their sub-county coordinator to plant 1,100 Mukau seedlings at 2 local schools.
By 2025, they plan to expand outside their local area. They continually encourage people to plant at least 100 seedlings on their farms per season to help restore forest cover. They shared, “We are proud that we can supply the population around with lots of trees, then we can see our trees growing in the communities.”