Meet the supplier Oleleshwa Farm, who supplies Governors’ Camp, Little Governors Camp and Governors’ Il Moran in the Masai Mara with locally produced vegetables and fruits.
How long have you been working with Governors’ Camp Collection?
We have been supplying Governors’ Camp Collection since the beginning of 2022.
What three words would you use to describe your product?
Fresh, rugged, quality.
Tell us about the history of the farm.
Oleleshwa Farm was established in 2013 to further enable the agriculture and food security pillar of the WE Charity Foundation in the region. Oleleshwa is a model farm which supports the local community via employment, training on agribusiness and new farming techniques. All proceeds from the produce supports the local community in terms of health care and education.
We employ around 20 people and have 24 greenhouses, a training space, large open fields and a section dedicated to pollinators, which additionally enables the farm to provide a diverse range of healthy food.
How is your location and connection with your local area reflected in your product?
Our local area is our produce. It’s our local climate that dictates which crops do well and when to grow them. It’s our local soils that make our red, green and yellow peppers taste so much sweeter than the same variety grown elsewhere in Kenya! It’s the well-balanced soil microbiology in our field that makes our plants grow healthy and produce well.
When Governors’ Camp guests eat our vegetables and fruit they are supporting us to grow the healthiest crops possible, to protect and build the fertility of local soils, to help us build carbon in our soils as our way to address climate issues, and a team of young growers who are building their families and lives around a sustainable farming model.
What has been the proudest moment of your story so far?
Our produce is also used to supplement school nutrition programs. By providing students with nutritious meals, their overall health increases and we have seen improvement both in attendance and academic performance.
Describe a typical day in creating your product – what is the farm-to-table story?
There is no typical day on our farm. Mondays are seed sowing, Tuesdays are for planting out seedlings and preparing the ground for new plantings. On Wednesdays, we harvest root crops, on Thursdays and Fridays we harvest the vegetables and pack produce. Fridays are for deliveries and markets, Saturdays are for market again. On Sundays we rest! Our crops are harvested and delivered fresh to our customers as we are about an hour away from Governors’ Camps.
What do you supply Governors’ Camps?
We mainly supply red, green and yellow peppers and red onions all year round. Strawberries are supplied in season. I once had some of the strawberry ice cream they make at Governors’ and it was simply delicious!
Tell us more about this strawberry ice cream at Governors’ Camp?
The recipe is not mine but the camp kindly shared it with me and I am sure they won’t mind me passing it on.
Ingredients:
400 grams of fresh strawberries 8 egg yolks 500ml Fresh cream 500ml whole (full fat) milk 250 grams of caster sugar
Method:
Blend the strawberries and sugar until smooth, add the egg yolks and if there is enough room in the blender, add the cream and milk, otherwise transfer the strawberry sugar mixture to a large bowl and whisk in the milk and cream. Transfer all to an ice cream machine and turn until semi frozen before putting in containers and freezing.
Thank you to Nick Penny for all the wonderful and colorful images.
