Kangari village in Muranga’s county, Kenya, has practiced mono-cropping for many years. “Nearly 80% of the land and the time spent farming focuses on tea crops, which are planted purely for income but hold little additional value as sustenance to local farmers and their families.”
The Organic Agriculture Centre of Kenya (OACK), according to Alliance for Food Sovereignty in African (AFSA), saw that by providing the right skills, information and support, they could help small-scale farmers move away from subsistence farming and into thriving livelihoods that improve their local communities and the landscapes they live in.
Samuel, who comes from “a long line of farmers”, on meeting a farm educator from OACK, according to AFSA, joined a five-day introductory course with 25 other smallholder farmers and “learnt several practical skills, such as how to make sustainable bio-fertilisers and studied the benefits of crop diversification and how to implement it.” “My farming life suddenly changed as I understood how to use cattle manure and weeds to make my own fertilisers and pesticides. I’m convinced that the soil on my farm is better, going by what I now harvest,” he said. “The money I get as a result of organic farming has helped me educate my three sons and a daughter without a hard struggle.”
Read Samuel’s full story, here.