Photo: Collected
The situation is dire: 1.4 million tons of soil have washed
away over 45 years in West Pokot alone. In one area, soil erosion has formed
gullies that measure a staggering 15 kilometers, roughly 9 miles, long.
This treacherous landscape has caused the loss of over 100 cattle,
the lives of four people, and the health of several others injured due to
accidental falls. To make matters worse, gullies have lowered the water table,
which accentuates water scarcity during the dry season, increases the physical
separation of neighbors, reduces the amount of arable land, and impacts farm
productivity—increasing food, nutrition, and income insecurities. Kenya is
facing its worst food crisis in decades, with 4.4 million people across the
country experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity.
Hunger and climate change are inextricably linked—they both
demand an urgent reshaping of food and agricultural systems. That’s why gully
prevention and rehabilitation have become a top priority for farmers in
reclaiming their lands, and also why adapting to climate change has moved to
the center of Kenya’s national plans and international negotiations.
Nationally Determined
Contributions – A Call for Transformation
Eighty percent of Kenya’s rural population relies on
household production as their primary source of food. Climate change puts
agriculture particularly at risk, threatening the food security of most of the
country. The ongoing energy crisis has amplified insecurity, as surging prices
disproportionately impact farmers. Alongside inflated costs of food and fuel,
the cost of fertilizer has tripled, forcing smallholder farmers to make
difficult decisions and explore alternatives.
A key part of building resilience is strengthening natural
systems and reducing reliance on external imports like fertilizer. To this end,
farmers are collaborating with researchers in western Kenya to improve the
formula for bokashi, a compost made from food waste, and in the arid Maradi
region of Niger, the Women’s Fields project is testing the efficacy of readily
available fertilizers—including human urine—and teaching women in other regions
how to do the same.
Creative and cost-effective adaptations like these,
alongside proven mitigation measures, will be central to helping farming
communities overcome current and future climate-related crises and national
and international support is needed to reach broad adoption and success.
Kenya’s 2020 climate plan (called a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC,
a key component of countries’ participation in the Paris Climate Agreement),
calls for a “transformation of the agricultural sector.” But the country’s—and
the world’s—ability to achieve ambitious emissions goals hinges on the quality
and scale of these transformations.
In a recent report about untapped opportunities for climate
action, the Global Alliance for the Future of Food found that food systems
account for a third of all global greenhouse gas emissions, but receive just 3
percent of climate finance and that over 70 percent of countries are missing
specific details on food systems reform in their NDCs. The Alliance calls on
all countries to produce ambitious plans to improve their food systems, in ways
that are rooted in the needs of local farmers and food networks.
In an analysis of Kenya’s NDC, the report recommends greater
inclusion of underrepresented groups, “in particular women, smallholder
farmers, Indigenous Peoples, and other marginalized groups,” and the
introduction of agroecological and regenerative farming practices.
As it so happens, in 2014 a small group of farmers in Kenya began a research endeavor that anticipated these priorities by six years. This project is a promising model of what bold agricultural transformation in Kenya can look like.
Farmer Research Network
– Radical Collaboration
The Drylands Farmer Research Network (FRN) in West Pokot
County, Kenya, a grantee partner of the McKnight Foundation’s global
Collaborative Crop Research Program, began with a community-first approach.
Seed researcher and core team member Bonface Alkamoi explains, “Prior to
receiving the grant, even, the question was: ‘How do we help communities, whose
priorities are livestock, to think soil and water conservation?’”
An FRN is a radically collaborative union of smallholder
farmers, academic researchers, and other organizations that pursue a shared
goal of seeing smallholder farmers thrive. The concept of the FRN was developed
through the CCRP out of their conviction that smallholder farmers’ essential
wisdom and insights have been overlooked. It, therefore, flips the script on a
traditional “top-down” approach in which researchers tell farmers what to do.
Instead, the networks rely on a participatory model in which every member has a
voice in every step of the research process. The Drylands FRN stands out as an
exemplar of this model, according to Dr. Linnet Gohole, a professor of
entomology at the University of Eldoret in Kenya and representative for the CCRP.
She ascribes its continued growth and success not only to its impressive
results, “seeing crops where none existed before,” but to its “strength of
relationships.”
The inaugural team comprised five local smallholder farmers,
who collaborated with the Kenya Ministry of Agriculture, local administration,
local schools, and the University of Eldoret, and was led by principal
investigators Professor Wilson Ng’etich, Dr. Ruth Njoroge, Dr. S. Kebeney, Dr.
Fred Wamalwa, Bonface Alkamoi, Harrison Churu, Mumo James, Mr. Denis Mugaa. To
mitigate the impacts of gully erosion, the Drylands FRN adopted integrated
Gully Rehabilitation Trusts (GRTs) that comprised 385 households spread across
five soil and water conservation groups. These groups implemented a
multi-faceted plan to mitigate and rehabilitate gullies through the adoption of
sand dam construction, cut-off drains, terracing, afforestation, gabions, check
dams, stone bunds, and enclosures.
West Pokot County is an arid region that experiences
frequent and prolonged droughts and famine. Climate change only exacerbates
these challenges.
“The worst problems arising from climate change are
interrelated,” says Dr. Beth Medvecky at Cornell University’s International
Institute for Food, Agriculture and Development, who has a longstanding
relationship with the Drylands community. “Soil degradation, together with
increasingly erratic rainfall, makes rain-fed agriculture incredibly
problematic. Degraded soils are also low in nutrients. They grow weak plants
that are more susceptible to pests and diseases.”
This domino effect of land degradation took its toll on the
Drylands community. Prior to forming the Drylands FRN, Bonface Alkamoi shared:
“In this area, there used to be wildlife—buffalo, leopards, lions. The community
couldn’t figure out why the [wildlife] were moving…they were moving due to
[land] degradation.” The delicate relationship between soil and farmer was
upset as farmers had to implement unsustainable farming practices to ensure
adequate crop yields, further accelerating land degradation. This turned into a
vicious cycle, where farmers experienced food shortages in as little as three
months after harvesting their crops, and women had to walk up to 5 kilometers
(3 miles) for water. The community overwhelmingly considered the situation irreversible
and beyond repair.
Bringing Back Soil
Health
The Drylands FRN sought to challenge this underlying
assumption. It contended that the community could restore soil health. An early site visit to neighboring farmland in Tigray,
Ethiopia demonstrated that this goal was within reach. Their land had been even
less arable than that of the FRN members but now flourished as a result of
implementing evidence-based agroecological practices. The hosting farmers
encouraged them to let go of the notion that land degradation was outside of
their control, telling them: “The land is not dry—only your mind is dry.”
Alkamoi explains that this site visit represented a crucial
turning point for the FRN members, changing their mindsets from resigned to
inspired. “When the question becomes ‘Now what?’, that’s where farmer
innovation comes in. The FRN approach allows farmers to test what they believe
in.” Harnessing water emerged as a top priority. Water is a precious resource
in an arid climate. Ironically, water runoff is a significant cause of land
degradation, as irregular, heavy rainfall carries away newly planted seeds and
topsoil down into the gully, taking away the community’s drinking and
irrigation water as well. Building sand dams can divert runoff, and capture and
store rainfall.
The FRN’s implementation of sand dams exemplified their
collaborative approach. A neighboring county had designed and installed a sand
dam using a typical “top-down” approach. It cost 2 million Kenyan shillings
(about $20,000 USD) and was soon after swept away by floods. By contrast, the
Drylands FRN created its own sand dam design, chose the location, and
distributed materials. The total cost per sand dam was between 20,000-40,000
Kenyan shillings, a fraction of the cost of the county-implemented dam, and
they have remained stable. Most importantly, they delivered results. Women now
travel less than a kilometer for water. Increased irrigation means that farmers
can now support a second harvest of their crops and tree nursery, addressing
food insecurity. The sand dam also acts as a bridge, creating a passable road
across the gullies, reconnecting neighbors and acting as a thoroughfare for
livestock.
Source:
Online/SZK
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