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.