Kenyan farmers turn to new weapons against 'Osama'

By Isaiah Esipisu

EMBU, Kenya (AlertNet) – The most important post-harvest pest in Kenya’s dryland areas is the larger grain borer, locally known as ‘Osama’ in testament to its aggressive destructiveness.

Farmers say it flourishes in high temperatures – a particular problem as climate change brings warming conditions in many parts of the country.



Benjamin Njue Ngari a tinsmith at Kiritiri market in Embu
explains how to use a metal silo ideal for storing two 90 kg bags of grains



But smallholder farmers in Eastern Kenya and other parts of the country have found a way to combat the pest: metal storage silos that help protect grain from both insects and fungal infections.

At Kiritiri market in Embu County, in semi-arid Eastern Kenya, Benjamin Njue Ngari, a local tinsmith, and his assistants are now busy moulding galvanized metal sheets into airtight cylinders to meet surging demand.

“It has two openings, one on top for filling, and the other one at the bottom for emptying,” explains Ngari. “We make them in different sizes to store between one and 20, 90kg bags of grain.”

Drought farming lessons join reading and writing at Kenyan schools

By Isaiah Esipisu

Purity Njigi attending to her mango tree at Kamunyagia school

MBEERE, Kenya (AlertNet) – At Kamunyagia Primary, year seven student Purity Njigi is learning something new alongside her usual lessons – how to produce enough food to eat when there isn’t enough rain.

As part of an effort to help area farmers – and their children – adapt to changing climate conditions, Njigi and other students at the school have formed a Junior Farmers Club, with each member allocated a small portion of land to grow crops and fruit trees.

“It is like a competition,” she says – and the results are clear.

Arab Spring Teaches Food Security

By Terna Gyuse and Isaiah Esipisu

Melinda Gates holding a packet of cassava flour

ARUSHA, Tanzania, (IPS) - African leaders should take note of the lessons learned from the Arab Spring and realise that ensuring good governance and food security will avoid crises on the continent, says Kofi Annan, chairman of the Africa Green Revolution Alliance.


The former United Nations Secretary General said that food shortage was one of the triggers of the protests in North African and Middle-Eastern countries that lead to the ousting of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 and Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak in February that same year.

Moving Towards Food Security in Dry Land Areas

By Isaiah Esipisu



Jemina Nzuki preparing zai-pits



MWINGI, Kenya – In a tiny village known as Kakumini in the heart of Mwingi Sub-County, Jemima Nzuki is busy excavating zai-pits on her three acre plot in preparation for planting. The entire semi arid region is dry. Nobody surely knows when the elusive rains will come down. But Nzuki and other villagers have hopes that it will rain some day, and that is when they will plant.

The last time it rained in this area was seven months ago. That was when she harvested the food that sustains her family to date.

The food stock in her granary is evidence that the 30 year old mother of four has learnt tricks on how to co-exist with tough and ever shifting climatic conditions.

How safe is Sex in Kenya?

By Isaiah Esipisu

• 44 percent of new HIV infections are occurring among cohabiting or married couples
• 67 percent of women acquiring new infections are below the age of 35
• 50 percent of HIV infected people have partners who do not know their status
• Globally, 42 percent of new HIV infections occur among the youth

It is natural for every parent to panic if their child is born without sexual organs. This means that we all aspire to be sexually active adults, and we wish the same for our siblings. This was one of the  messages put across by experts during the 2012 Aids conference that ended on July 27, in Washington DC.

But with the HIV virus in sight, nobody can guarantee that our young children will grow up safely, marry and get children without encountering the AIDS causing virus. It means that

Need for Practical Leadership to Scale Up Medical Male Circumcision

By Isaiah Esipisu

A Kenyan young man undergoing voluntary medical circumcision in Western Ken

Washington DC - The Assistant Minister for Finance Dr Oburu Oginga has joined other world leaders at the ongoing International Aids Conference in Washington DC to urge politicians to take a front line in scaling up Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision – which prevents the risk of HIV infections by about 60 per cent.

“We have had leadership meetings especially in Luo Nyanza to support the issue of male circumcision for medical reasons, but as leaders from other countries have put it, there is an urgent need to do it more rigorously,” said the Assistant Minister.

 

NACC Seeks a Policy to Support High Risky Groups

By Isaiah Esipisu

Prof Alloys Orago, Director NACC in Kenya

Washington DC: The Kenya’s National Aids Control Council (NACC) may soon have programs targeting concentrated groups such as Commercial Sex Workers, Men who have Sex with Men and Injecting drug users, if the current organisation’s strategic plan is approved for implementation by policy makers.

Until Saturday this week, key health research scientists, officials from the NACC and the Parliamentary Health Committee members are dialoguing at the ongoing International Aids Conference in Washington DC with an aim of developing a policy that will deal with such criminalized groups.

 

This comes after both the Kenya Aids Indicator Survey (KAIS) and the Kenya Modes of Transmission Study indicated that such concentrated groups had high prevalence of HIV, and recorded a high number of new infections.

 

Global Fund to Change The Funding Strategy

By Isaiah Esipisu



Different posters with different meanings at the
International Aids Conference in Washington

Washington DC: Countries funded by the Global Fund for the fight against HIV, tuberculosis and malaria will no longer receive the money in ‘batches of rounds’ as it has traditionally been for the past ten years.

According to Dr Christopher Benn, the Director – External Relations and Partnerships Cluster at the Global Fund, the ‘annual funding round’ system is no longer sustainable, and as a result the funding agency will now focus on supporting particular projects of interest.

“The ‘annual rounds’ method of funding was a good way to channel a lot of money quickly to countries in need, where the Global Fund has built up projects in 150 countries all over the world. But it is no longer the best,” said Dr Benn during the ongoing International Aids Conference in Washington DC.

Multi-Drug Resistant TB Could Soon be Cured in Three Months

The current treatment takes two years, with 12,600 pills and 180 daily jabs

Drugs for MDR-TB: A dose meant for one day

By Isaiah Esipisu

Washington DC: Patients suffering from Tuberculosis could soon be treated to a 14 days dose to cure the disease, down from the current 180 days dose that also involved hundreds to thousands of pills and injections. At the same time, patients with the Multi-Drug Resistant TB will soon be cured in four months without injections and powdered sachets, down from the current recommended period of up to 24 months.

This is after scientists from the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development made a major breakthrough in developing a combination drug regimen that killed 99 per cent of TB causing bacteria in just two weeks – in a trial phase.

Mapping out Climate Change Adaptation Plans on Kenya’s Airwaves

MAKUENI, Kenya, Jun 28 2012 (IPS) - On a Wednesday morning in Mutitu-Andei township in Makueni County, one of Kenya’s driest areas, smallholder farmer Josephine Mutiso tunes into Radio Mang’elete 89.1 FM and listens as meteorological experts discuss the changes in rainfall patterns in the county.

In the past Mutiso has implemented much of the advice from the community station and has been able to successfully use “Zai” pit farming to rehabilitate her dry farmland.

This is a traditional technique which involves digging pits about 30 centimetres deep and filling them with manure and topsoil. When it rains, the mixture of topsoil and manure is able to retain moisture for a longer period, and it ensures that the crop nutrients are concentrated in the pits.

Using Smallholder Farmer-Groups to Dig Out Poverty

By Isaiah Esipisu


Anita Onumah  displays green chili worth five USD
 during the launch of AGRA'S FOSCAproject in Accra,Ghana.
Photo by Isaiah Esipisu



TrustMedia Alumni Blog - After years of dependence of food aid in the semi-arid Eastern Kenya, Stephen Mwangangi from Kinyatta village in Yatta district has discovered how to keep his family food secure by using just one acre piece of land despite the droughts.

The entire region also known as Ukambani is dry. But through a church-led self help group known Christian Impact Mission, farmers have discovered means of survival – combining indigenous knowledge with emerging technologies to grow high value horticultural crops for domestic and the export market.

“On my plot, I grow maize purely for domestic consumption, and horticultural crops such as soy beans, French beans, bullet pepper, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes among many others for both domestic and the export market,” said Mwangangi.

Kenyan villagers grow their way out of food aid

By Isaiah Esipisu



An example of Zai pits where maize has
 just been transplanted.

YATTA, Kenya (AlertNet) - In the remote east Kenyan village of Makutano, Jane Mutinda Maingi is feeding maize to her Friesian dairy cow, bought just a week ago with proceeds from selling produce grown on her one-hectare plot.

Despite frequent droughts in the semi-arid Yatta region, the 60-year-old mother of six has healthy maize crops on her farm, as well as vegetables such as chilli peppers and cucumbers, some destined for the export market.

“Since my childhood, this area has never been known for agricultural production,” she says. “In fact, until two years ago, the government and other humanitarian organisations always had a default programme of bringing us food aid every year.”

Tired of this dependency, several households in Yatta came together in 2009 under a church-led initiative aimed at stamping out hunger and ending the need for food aid. They called their project “Operation Mwolyo Out” (OMO), “Mwolyo” meaning food aid in the local Kamba language.

They started to invest in ways of harvesting and conserving water, and to experiment with a mix of indigenous and innovative methods of dry-land farming. The approach quickly bore fruit.

Kenya "Becoming Economic Heartbeat of Africa"

By Isaiah Esipisu


Nairobi City at night



NAIROBI, Apr 25 (IPS) – When Kenya’s newly announced geothermal power generation project comes online, it will turn the East African country into an economic powerhouse in the region.

In April, the government launched the Menengai Geothermal Development Project, the first initiative of its newly formed Geothermal Development Company, which has been set up to fast track the development of geothermal resources here.

According to its chief executive officer, Dr. Silas Simiyu, by 2016 the first phase will generate 400 MW, which is enough to light up 500,000 households and run 300,000 small businesses.

Kenya: Garbage-Fed Community Cooker Cuts Wood Use, Energy Costs

By Isaiah Esipisu

At 9 am, boiled-maize vendor Janet Atieno leaves her house in Laini Saba village in Nairobi's sprawling Kibera slum with a sack in one hand and a stick in the other. Her mission is to collect solid waste that she can exchange for cooking time at a community facility that makes use of garbage as fuel.

"For many years, I have used either charcoal or firewood to boil the maize. But the cost of these forms of energy has become unbearable," said the mother of four, explaining why she decided to start picking up rubbish to redeem at the community cooker.

Climate change calamities are easy to predict, and manage

By Isaiah Esipisu

After decades of dependence on donations and food aid, East Kenyan native Sophia Mwende Mutua discovered how to embrace tough climatic conditions by growing drought-resistant crops for commercial and domestic consumption.

“Eastern Kenya is a dry land area,” Mutua said. “At times, we can go three years without any signs of rainfall. Yet, the only way to survive when faced with these circumstances can only be through food aid distributed by humanitarian organisations and agencies,” said the mother of five.

Microloans, Greenhouses Help Women Cope with Climate Change

By Isaiah Esipisu

NAIROBI, Mar 2, 2012 (IPS) - At Gakoromone Market in Meru, in Kenya’s Eastern Province, Ruth Muriuki arrives in a pickup full of tomatoes and cabbages despite the scarcity of rainfall in the area, thanks to the greenhouse technology she uses on her farm – and microcredit.

"A bundle of ten tomatoes which would cost Sh40 (50 cents of a dollar) three months ago is now going for double the price. But we have no choice," said David Njogu, a vegetable dealer at the open-air market. Muriuki is selling a big sugarloaf cabbage, which would have cost 50 cents three months ago, at 1.50 dollars.

A spot check in the country shows that prices of horticultural produce have shot up in the past three months following the failure of short rains, which were expected to come between October and December last year.

In Search of Lasting Farming Solutions to Climate Change

By Isaiah Esipisu

NAIROBI, Sep 29 (IPS) - In the semi-arid Laikipia district of Kenya’s Rift Valley province, research scientist Sarah Ogalleh Ayeri travels from one village to another, documenting methods used by peasant farmers as they attempt to adapt to changing climatic conditions.

Laikipia district, found on a high plateau north-west of Mount Kenya, is divided into two ecological regions. The side closer to Mount Kenya receives some seasonal rains, while the northern part of the plateau is arid.