Ubuntu Times

Aquaponics Farming Helps Ugandan Women Regain Lost Livelihoods From The Pandemic

Diana Taremwa Karakire

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January 26, 2022

Aquaponics Farming Helps Ugandan Women Regain Lost Livelihoods From The Pandemic

KAMPALA, Uganda — On a hill above Kampala’s city suburb of Ntinda, new farmer Peace Mukulungu looks over her aquaponics farming project she says is slowly allowing her to recover from pandemic-related disruption. It is a manifestation of how new charity-backed interventions are allowing COVID-19 victims to restore livelihoods.

“Who knew I would become a fish farmer after all these years as a secretary!” she exclaims with a wide grin on her face.

The Aquaponics farming project is an initiative of Water Governance Institute WGI a local non-government organization that is supported by funding from USAID. It was rolled out in Kampala in 2018. Working with Kampala City Council, WGI has been promoting Aquaponics farming as a recovery initiative targeting women in Kampala that lost their livelihoods as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. The intervention is aimed at promoting food security, improved livelihoods as well as boosting household incomes.

The 50-year-old Mukulungu is a single mother who over the years relied on her job in a secretarial bureau in the city to support her five children. When the pandemic hit and Uganda started to lock down to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus, the business closed. Within weeks, she was home and jobless.

Today Mukulungu is a beneficiary of the aquaponics farming project, from which she has been able to replace lost income from the secretarial bureau. Her system was stocked with 115 catfish fingerlings and vegetables including spinach and lettuce. These initial inputs were offered by WGI including fish feeds for 6 months.

Mukulungu earns Uganda shillings 350,000 (USD 100) per month from her fish farming, nearly double what she used to earn at the secretarial bureau.

“Who knew I could become a fish farmer without owning land and a pond,” she keeps wondering. “This is more convenient because I don’t even have to pay transport fare.”

Deborah Gita harvests Kale leaves from her Aquaponics system that consists of a fish tank and a grow bed. She is already reaping benefits from her system — Deborah Gita an aquaponics project beneficiary harvests Kale leaves from her aquaponics system that consists of a fish tank and a grow bed. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

Similar stories of lost livelihoods across Uganda are commonplace. From teachers to market workers many women who had over the years supported their families have been left struggling as Uganda implemented one of the strictest lockdowns to stem COVID-19.

According to the World Bank, the COVID-19 shock caused a sharp contraction of the economy to its slowest pace in three decades. Household incomes fell when firms closed and jobs were lost, particularly in the urban informal and formal sectors. Gross domestic product contracted by 1.1 percent in the year 2020.

The impacts have been worse especially for women working in both the formal and informal sectors. A recent report by Akina Mama wa Afrika – a local charity – indicates that the economic impact has resulted in reduced incomes and opportunities to earn a livelihood for over 70% of women employed in the informal sector which is less secure in terms of social protection. The report further states that in the absence of mitigation in the form of gender-informed strategies, women are likely to face heightened tensions, financial uncertainties, food insecurity, and vulnerability to poverty.

Aisha Nalwoga the fisheries officer at WGI describes Aquaponics as a smart agricultural innovation that combines both fish rearing and growing horticultural crops in a closed-loop water-recycling system. The system comprises a water tank in which fish is reared and grow-beds. The grow-beds contain a sand-gravel-aggregate layered medium where crops are grown. Water is introduced, manually or automatically into the fish tank from where it is drawn out as fish-waste-water and irrigated onto crops in grow-beds.

“The system has a capacity of 1200 catfish and 160 horticultural plants in the grow-beds. The horticultural crops may include tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, green pepper among others,” says Nalwoga. It allows for the year-round production of protein and vegetables. WGI working with Makerere University Agricultural Research Institute, Kabanyolo came up with this innovation.

The system is movable and can be set up anywhere requiring a small piece of land. It may be automated with water pumps using grid or solar energy, depending on farmers’ preferences, affordability, and access to the energy options.

Deborah Gita poses next to her aquaponics farming system where she just harvested kale and beans. Aquaponics farming project beneficiaries are already reaping from their systems — Deborah Gita poses next to her aquaponics farming system where she has just harvested kale and beans. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

As COVID-19 ravaged the informal sector, the clientele for the project grew from less than 50 people to over 100 across Kampala’s five divisions. The project has established 8 demonstration sites in Kampala city, plus Kamuli, Hoima, and Adjumani districts, supporting more than 400 beneficiaries across the country, a critical intervention as the country struggles to recover from the pandemic.

“People are embracing the innovation and adopting it especially because these systems take up less space and can be located anywhere in the backyards or rooftops and the fish is protected from vermin unlike in ponds,” says Nalwoga.

The rapid urbanization, limited space, and a growing population in Kampala make aquaponics farming a better alternative to fish farming in earthen ponds that require bigger land and space.

For women most of who culturally in Uganda don’t own land under customary law and tenure land ownership, and are dogged by insecure land rights, Aquaponics farming is a ray of hope.

Other beneficiaries are like 55-year-old Deborah Gita, who used to run a garment shop, dealing in used beddings in the sprawling downtown market of St. Balikudembe. When the pandemic hit, the market, one of the country’s most congested was among the first to be closed down. Out of the job, the single mother faced a daunting challenge to support her five children. She was approached by KCCA and the village councilor to become an aquaponics adoptee. After days of training, she was assisted to set up a system at her home.

“My system was stocked with 400 catfish fingerlings and vegetables including kale and beans,” says Gita. “I am now able to feed my family with a balanced diet and at the same time earn some money from the produce.”

Now earning some 1,500 shillings ($4) per kilogram of Kale vegetable, Gita, who once struggled to feed her children earns enough money to afford necessities including food, pay for electricity, and her water bills. She is looking forward to the harvest of fish.

From her garment stall, she used to earn a profit of around Uganda shillings 500,000. Since she started on aquaponics, she has managed to get at least 400,000 each month from the sale of vegetables alone. When her fish gets of age, she hopes to more than double this.

An automated Aquaponics farming system consisting of a fish tank and grow beds where vegetables are grown. — Peace Mukulungu’s automated Aquaponics farming system consisting of 114 catfish and grow beds with spinach vegetables. Credit: Diana Taremwa Karakire / Ubuntu Times

However, it has not been entirely smooth sailing for the project. Low skills to manage aquaponics systems, limited access to inputs such as water, fish feeds, and expensive electricity are some of the challenges before people like Gita. Securing a dependable and affordable source of good quality fish feeds and fish fingerlings on the Ugandan market has also not been easy for most beneficiaries. This has led to system management lapses leading to fish deaths and crop failure in some cases. Nonetheless, project officers have come up with training manuals as well as system management manuals translated into local languages.

Beneficiaries are also required to keep books on how they manage the systems in terms of how much water is used daily. Weekly calls are also made to beneficiaries to check on their progress. Through community awareness-raising meetings and radio talk shows, WGI has been promoting aquaponics farming among farmers, households, and youth in targeted districts. “We see aquaponics being an opportunity for employment for the many unemployed youths in the country,” says Nalwoga.

For its part, the government of Uganda has put in place measures to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19 on the masses. Experts say that the majority of these interventions target the formal sector and leave out the informal sector where many workers live hand to mouth, mostly women.

It has also been noted that these strategies and interventions are not alive to the gendered impacts of the pandemic and fail to fulfill aspirations of sustainable development goal 5 on gender equality and empowerment of women and girls yet this is crucial to accelerating recovery from the pandemic.

“Aquaponics is a viable and smart agricultural innovation however beneficiaries need to be thoroughly trained so that they understand how a system works, as the only way they will sustainably reap benefits from the systems,” says Victoria Tibenda Namulawa head of Aquaculture at Uganda’s National Agricultural Research Organisation.

This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Gender Justice Reporting Initiative.

Desert Locusts Invasion Cause Panic In Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region

Kizito Makoye

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March 4, 2021

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Desert Locusts Invasion Cause Panic In Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro Region

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania — At first glance, Hilder Tarimo, a local farmer in a sleepy Ngai Nairobi village in Tanzania’s Siha district, thought the dark dense blot darkening her horizons was clouds ushering in some rains.

But when a swarm of fast-moving creatures finally descended on her farm, the danger was real.

“It felt like a huge cloud falling from the sky,” said Tarimo, who grows maize, beans, and vegetables on her farm.

Efforts to scare them away with smoke did not work since the insects descended in their millions, Tarimo said.

“They caused a lot of destruction in a matter of hours,” she said.

Pleasant Surprise

As local villagers struggled to scare away the invaders, they had a pleasant surprise when they spotted a small plane sprinkling powdery water from the sky barely hours after they arrived, thanks to the swift government action.

Tanzania is battling a wave of desert locusts that has spread in the northern Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions, razing vegetation causing panic among farmers who fear the destruction of their crops.

Although local authorities say the latest invasion of highly mobile creatures is under control, local farmers are still worried about the unwelcome guests who pose a real threat to their crops.

Onesmo Biswelu, Siha District Commissioner said swarms of locusts, which invaded plantations at Ngare Nairobi ward since Tuesday have been obliterated by pesticides sprinkled from special planes.

“We have successfully contained the spread through aerial spraying of powerful pesticides,” Biswelu said.

The Worst Invasion

East Africa had experienced the worst invasion of locusts in the past year, triggering food shortages in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. The destructive creatures, believed to be fuelled by the changing weather patterns are a potential threat to food security, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.

In January last year, Kenya suffered the worst outbreak of desert locusts in 70 years, as millions of insects swarmed into farmlands destroying crops thus threatening the country with hunger.

Contingency Planning

As part of its contingency planning, the government of Tanzania said it will apportion a sufficient budget in the next financial year to purchase insecticide spraying and mapping equipment including motorized drones to combat destructive insects.

Adolf Mkenda, Tanzania Minister for Agriculture and cooperatives said spraying is an effective strategy to combat locust infestation adding that officials are currently using two hired planes for the task.

“There’s no reason for people to panic, the problem is under control,” he said Wednesday.

The minister said the government is closely monitoring the movement of locusts in all affected regions and will accordingly spray pesticides to kill them.

The minister warned local residents in Siha, Simanjiro, and Longido districts where locusts have been spotted to avoid eating or touching insects since they may contain poisonous substances.

Jeremiah Sanka, a resident of Longido told The Citizen newspaper that locusts invasion is disconcerting especially now maize has started to germinate.

“If the maize is eaten it will be such a huge loss,” he said.

Zimbabwe Farmers Embrace Conservation Agriculture To Beat Effects Of Climate Change

Farai Shawn Matiashe

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November 4, 2020

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Zimbabwe Farmers Embrace Conservation Agriculture To Beat Effects Of Climate Change

Marange, Zimbabwe — It is a windy day in Marange, Chanakira village. Small clouds scuddle the blue sky giving it a blurred look. About 110 kilometers southwest of Mutare, Norah Mwastuku (48) a subsistence farmer sits at the verandah and contemplates when the first rains will arrive.

She anxiously looks at her fields, decorated with mulched holes.

Mwastuku is one of the farmers who have embraced the Pfumvudza program — a concept where crops are planted on zero tillage in a bid to conserve water and inputs on a small piece of land.

She is enthusiastic about the program and is looking forward to the new season.

“I have already dug holes in a 39 meters by 16 meters piece of land. This coming season I am planning to grow maize,” the mother of four told Ubuntu Times.

This area does not receive much rain and farmers like Mwastuku rely on boreholes to water their fields. The soils are tired too.

While the government is currently popularizing the Pfumvudza program, Mwastuku is used to it. In the season 2019/2020, she grew maize and sorghum at the same size of land as part of Pfumvudza.

“I had a good harvest. This is what we are surviving on as a family,” she said. The farming concept is increasingly becoming popular among farmers in areas that receive less rainfall.

Lilian Murangariri (50), a small-holder farmer from Headlands, about 140 kilometers from the capital Harare says Pfumvudza has less labor.

“Last year I grew orange maize and white maize in a half-hectare piece of land. I was amazed with the harvest. As a farmer you do not have to stress about using cows for tillage as this is zero tillage,” she told Ubuntu Times.

The mother of three says Pfumvudza is economic and can be practiced by farmers who do not have enough farming machinery.

“The holes and mulch conserve water. I can still harvest my crops even if there is poor rain. I also use less inputs such as fertilizer,” said Murangariri.

Mwastuku and Murangariri are some of the over 9,000 people who have embraced Pfumvudza with the support from the Zimbabwe Livelihoods and Food Security Programme (LFSP).

Pfumvudza concept is helping rural women to end hunger in their communities — Pfumvudza concept maximizes on a small piece of land with less agricultural inputs to produce a good harvest. Credit: FAO

The LFSP, which is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), is managed by United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and implemented by Welthungerhilfe, Practical Action and World Vision.

It is aimed at reducing poverty, targeting 250,000 rural farming households through improved food and nutrition security and incomes in 10 districts in Zimbabwe.

LFSP trained over 50,000 farmers from their clusters in Manicaland, Midlands, and Mashonaland Provinces in 2019.

For the past half a decade Zimbabwe has been having incessant droughts and floods which, according to experts, are caused by climate change.

Nearly 8 million people, about half of Zimbabwe’s population, are food insecure, according to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

The southern African nation, which was once the breadbasket of the continent, will import an estimated 1.1 million tonnes of grain in the 2020/2021 marketing year to meet demand, according to the FAO.

This Pfumvudza concept which was spearheaded by FAO last season in Zimbabwe has been adopted by the President Emmerson Mnangagwa led government in the 2020/2021 season targeting nearly 2 million households, about 10 million people.

The government is supporting these farmers with inputs.

Prudence Mucharwa, a small-holder farmer in Chihota near Marondera, about 70 kilometers from the capital Harare, said she is new to the concept.

“I joined Pfumvudza a bit late. I met an Agritex officer who explained it to me. The Grain Marketing Board will loan me inputs and I will pay back with maize or soya meal,” she said.

A mulched maize crop — Mulching which is part of the Pfumvudza concept helps in water conservation ideal in drought-hit areas in rural Zimbabwe. Credit: FAO

Lands ministry permanent secretary John Bhasera explains more about the program.

“Pfumvudza is simply conservation agriculture. This is basically conservation which has been nationalized. It has minimum soil disturbance as well as mulching creating a blanket of cover so that you can conserve moisture. Crop rotation as well, we have three farming sectors—one for [a certain type of] cereal, another for [a different] cereal and the last for other crops,” he said.

Zimbabwe has been having farming schemes for the past decades but still, farmers are producing grain not enough to feed the nation.

There is a need for new tactics.

“We now have a new extension approach which is called Train, Track and Monitor (TTM). We have sourced motorcycles for our agriculture extension workers across the country so that they are able to practice the TTM approach. We started with training. We trained the Agritex officers for nearly a month. Now the extension officers are training farmers,” Bhasera said

Farmers preparing the land for Pfumvudza on zero tillage — Pfumvudza concept is a zero tillage program that is considered cheap and time-saving by farmers. Credit: FAO

Olga Nhari, Women in Agriculture Union chairperson speaks glowingly about the program.

“Of the three plots one produces yield sufficient for family and the other two plots for national storage,” she said.

Nhari said Pfumvudza helps rural women, especially, to fight against hunger and to improve livelihoods.

Zimbabwe Farmers Union executive director Paul Zakariya said there was a need to reverse the current state of affairs, where Zimbabwe has remained a net importer of staple cereals.

“It is not desirable that a country that has excellent agricultural lands and enjoys excellent climatic conditions, should import all its food,” he said.

In the past, farming schemes have been marred by corruption in the distribution of inputs as well as loan allocations. Some experts fear that the culture might continue under the Pfumvudza program.

“To say it is an opportunity to loot funds needs intelligence on whether the program will have a budget allocation and the actual implementation of the project in terms of funds or inputs allocation,” Harare based economist Victor Bhoroma told Ubuntu Times.

“However, almost all the country’s agricultural subsidy programs have flopped because of politicization of inputs distribution, corruption, inefficient funding or repayment models and lack of private capital participation which is tied to complicated land tenure policies,”

He said most of these agriculture programs are more political than economic of which in politics, the end justifies the means, hence, the government can pursue an economically costly program because it serves political interests.

Farmers doing land preparation for Pfumvudza — Land preparation for Pfumvudza concept is often done soon after harvest while some in winter and others in summer. Credit: FAO

Another economist Vince Musewe said Zimbabwe has invested in previous farming schemes but the country still imports grain.

“We have invested billions (of dollars) in Command Agriculture and we still have to import. We, however, need a new mindset that farming is a business and not a hobby where farmers expect to get free inputs,” said Musewe adding that a strong private sector drive in agriculture is important.

Zakariya said there is a need to put in place measures to curb abuse of inputs under such schemes.

“Without effective and efficient systems, the world over, abuse can be rampant,” he said.

From Pfumvudza, the government is expecting about 1.8 million tonnes of grain, which is almost 90 percent of the national food requirements.

During the 2020/21 season, the LFSP aims to incorporate agroecology aspects as subsistence farmers like Mwastuku realize the fruits of their sweat.

It is hoped that agroecology will better climate-proof smallholder agriculture production and will ensure nutrition for 50,000 households.

Researchers Tout Healthy Food Recipes To Boost Nutrition, Cut Costs In Tanzania’s Schools

Kizito Makoye

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June 28, 2020

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Researchers Tout Healthy Food Recipes To Boost Nutrition, Cut Costs In Tanzania’s Schools

MANYARA — The tolling of the afternoon bell marks the end of lessons at Babati Day Secondary School in Tanzania’s northern Manyara region.

It ushers in a moment of joy for the students in neatly pressed uniforms, who anxiously line up to get their meal.

Drizzled with sweat, a middle-aged cook, in fluttering green apron, is cloistered in a smoke-belching kitchen. He quickly dishes out portions of pigeon pea stew with rice.

Besides traditional Ugali (maize meal) and beans, the students are now treated with healthy recipes, thanks to the Smart Foods Initiative launched to improve nutrition and boost incomes.

Meanwhile, about 102km away, in the wind-swept Kondoa Township nestled on the central plateau, John Gwandu is busy chopping onions, anointing them with crushed ginger and toss them in boiling oil while briskly stirring with a giant cooking stick.

A gush of steam wafts as he hurls freshly boiled pigeon peas into the sizzling onions to make a thick stew.

“Pigeon pea is simple to cook and tastier,” says Gwandu adding “It is faster to cook than beans.”

Research shows a direct correlation between better meals and good academic performance — Students at Babati Day Secondary School taking part in a group discussion. Credit: ICRISAT

The 43-year-old chef, at Amani Abeid Karume Secondary School in a drought-hit Kondoa district, in Dodoma, has just received training to prepare Smart Food Recipes, widely considered healthy and cost-effective.

As part of its broader initiative to improve nutrition and promote consumption of neglected crops including pigeon pea and finger millet, Tanzania government recently authorized researchers to test palatability and acceptability of the legumes.

Pigeon pea is the third-largest food legume grown in Tanzania after beans and groundnuts. The country produces approximately 200,000 metric tons, most of which is exported to India as whole grain.

However, due to India’s 2017 restrictions on Pigeon pea importation, farmers were left with huge surplus harvests which are now purchased by the schools.

A study conducted by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) — a non-profit agriculture research organization supported by many entities that include multiple governments, 80 and 70 percent of Tanzanian students changed their negative attitudes on pigeon pea and finger millet crops.

Dubbed “Participatory approach by involving adolescent school children in evaluating smart food dishes in school feeding programmes—real-time experience from central and northern Tanzania,” the study tested the acceptance of, pigeon pea and finger millet-based meals in a school feeding programs through training sessions on the nutritional quality and the crops’ sensory characteristics.

The study reveals, majority of the students wanted pigeon pea to be included in their meals multiple times and 80 percent of them wanted to eat meals based on finger millet all the days.

Dispelling the myth about finger millet — A Chef serving finger millet porridge to students at Dareda Secondary School as hot steam wafts from the pot. Credit: ICRISAT

During the research, a total of 2,822 students in four schools were fed improved meals including Pigeon pea and finger millet besides traditional maize and beans dishes.

The schools’ cooks had been trained by professional chefs and district nutritionists to make new recipes including finger millet porridge and pigeon pea stew slathered in groundnut or coconut cream.

SMART FOODS INITIATIVE

Anitha Seetha, a senior scientist and nutritionist at ICRISAT tells Ubuntu Times that dietary diversity is key to ensure the intake of nutritious foods, although it is only possible if there is crop diversity.

“Dietary diversity is not just eating different foods. It is eating different foods to meet nutrition goals,” she says.

According to her creating crop diversity alone does not guarantee dietary diversity since food perception and preferences influence consumption patterns.

Seetha said the Smart Food initiative strives to change behaviors and ensuring that the cycle of crop diversity and dietary diversity hinges on nutrition.

She said that enriching the nutritional quality of food can help in addressing hidden hunger problems in sub-Sahara Africa, adding that finger millet and pigeon pea enrich the meal due to their rich protein and micronutrients.

AWARENESS RAISING

The study has helped raise awareness on nutrition and changed students’ negative attitudes on healthy foods.

“Unless there is dietary diversity already in practice we cannot assume everything produced is consumed,” Seetha said.

During the baseline survey, the schools followed a weekly cyclical meal pattern with fixed menu specially designed by nutritionists to meet the students’ palatability.

To create nutritional diversity researchers formulated new recipes to complement traditional maize and beans dishes.

SENSORY TESTING

During the cooking exercise, the recipes were tasted for their palatability and acceptance among children, so that changes could be made in their cooking to conform to their traditional culinary culture

A total of 681 randomly selected students participated in sensory evaluation exercise entailing five hedonic scales with relevant emoji pictures to capture the students “likes” or “dislike” of the newly introduced recipes.

Most students initially disliked pigeon pea and finger millet based on myth that it was bitter and smelling bad, unpalatable and not tasty, researchers said.

The finding, however, suggested that pigeon pea-based meals had higher acceptance among the students participating in the exercise.

Including pigeon pea and finger millet in school diets infuses crop diversity in school feeding programs and also improves nutritional content of the meals while saving costs, researchers said.

Pigeon pea grows in various agro-ecological zones and is well adapted to dry climate conditions.

In sub-Sahara Africa it is widely grown in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, and Mozambique.

Amid worsening impacts of climate change, analysts say the crop has the potential to boost nutrition and improve food security.

Researchers said most families in study areas, initially shunned pigeon pea dishes because they thought it smells bad, bitter, and wasn’t good for mental health.

However, with the introduction of Smart Food Recipes, the people’s mindset is changing.

“When I didn’t add pigeon pea in the dish, the children used to wonder why I didn’t and ask me for it,” said Gwandu.

Including pulses in children’s meals has helped the schools to cut costs and triggered students taste buds saying smart meals are tastier and they would love to eat them daily.

Local chefs, moreover said cooking pigeon peas is easy, saves time and fuel as compared to beans which takes a long time.

Better nutrition and education prevent teenage pregnancies — A girl enjoying a meal at Bukulu Secondary School. Credit: ICRISAT

Some teachers say the students like the new recipes including Makande (Maize and pigeon pea stew) so much that they become upset whenever they miss it.

Zawadi Kapinga, the Headmistress of Babati Day Secondary School was not sure if the children would love exotic recipes but was simply amazed by their insatiable appetite for the meals.

“When pigeon pea is not on the day’s menu, children ask for it,” she said.

Swapping maize and beans based meals with pigeon pea, helped the school save costs from approximately 99,388 to 19,800 Tanzanian shillings per meal depending on number of students and amount of food they ate before the intervention, the study finds.

The project, which was supported by Tanzania’s Prime Minister’s office, serves as a model to promote Smart Foods to be replicated to other countries with similar nutritional situation and dietary patterns with the aim to improve dietary diversity and nutritional status and create market opportunities for local farmers.

In Tanzania, pigeon pea was until recently exported since traditionally people eat beans to get protein.

Could tree regeneration hold out hope for Africa’s vulnerable smallholder farmers?

Robert Kibet

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March 4, 2020

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Could tree regeneration hold out hope for Africa’s vulnerable smallholder farmers?

Homa Bay, Kenya MARCH 4, 2020 — With more than half of the estimated 2.2 billion people to be added to the global population by 2050 expected to be from the African continent, according to the UN report on global population, this rapid growth and its development policies, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa will inhibit efforts to alleviate poverty, ensuring food security, preserving the environment, and improving Africans’ well-being, increasing vulnerability to climate change impacts and undermine sustainable development efforts on the continent.

Staring at a crisis in which some 256 million people are facing hunger, and where much of its current discourse on food security is focused on increasing and expanding agricultural production, the African continent’s expansion in agricultural production is speculated to be at the expense of natural resources.

As one of the solutions, an ambitious program dubbed Regreening Africa, a multi-country project funded by the European Union is seeking to scale up evergreen agriculture targeting an estimated 500,000 farm households over an area of one million hectares by 2022.

The eight beneficiary countries; Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda in East Africa and West Africa’s Niger, Mali, Ghana, and Senegal are at the forefront in restoring already degraded land to more productive use.

The project builds on the considerable experience in land restoration consortium partners which are World Agroforestry Centre as project lead, World Vision, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), CARE, Oxfam, and Sahel Eco.

“We are blending research with development and identify practices that are suitable for the different kinds of farms that we are working across the eight countries in East Africa and West Africa’s Sahel region. Working with research and development partners together helps us to be able to make decisions that are informed by scientific evidence,” Susan Chomba, Regreening Africa Project Manager told Ubuntu Times in an interview.

The project encourages the use of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR), a quick, affordable and easy-to-replicate way of restoring and improving agricultural, forested and pasture lands by promoting systematic regrowth of existing trees or from naturally occurring tree seeds. It can be used wherever there are living tree stumps with the ability to coppice (re-sprout) or seeds in the soil that will germinate.

A farmer in northern Uganda prunes regenerating tree. — Stephen Tumhaire, a farmer in Chamkama, northern Uganda cattle corridor prunes indigenous trees on his farm. He practices Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) after acquiring skills on how to make sprouting trees regenerate. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times

Maxwell Ochoo, 32-year old father of four, quit his job as a community health mobilizer to engage in farming, a risky venture amidst degraded land in Lambwe, Kenya’s lakeside region.

“I worked as a community health mobilizer but when my contract ended, I resorted to try [my] luck in farming. It was a challenging undertaking with degraded land where none believed it would one day turn green,” says Ochoo.

After successfully practicing FMNR on his farm, Ochoo is currently a proud farmer as he is able to take his children to school, thanks to reliable income from his pawpaw fruits and a fish pond he established on his farm.

A farmer examines male pawpaw tree on his farm. — Farmer James Gichuru examining his male pawpaw tree on his farm in Aringo village, Homa Bay. Farmers in this region have found hope in pawpaw farming due to its ability to do well on harsh dry climate. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times

To minimize food cost for fish, I utilize calliandra — a small tropical legume tree he planted on his land, whose dry leaves are consumed by fish.

Farmers increase food security by retaining trees on agricultural land, by encouraging natural regeneration and by planting trees and other forest plants. For most of the year, herders in arid and semi-arid lands depend on trees as a source of fodder for their livestock.

Nancy Kemboi, a smallholder farmer in Baringo, a region characterized by constant drought also benefited on this simple innovative technique of protecting wildlings and pruning stumps that coppice so they rapidly regrow into trees.

Together with her husband, Nancy, through a capacity building on the FMNR skills offered by World Vision Kenya, she started regenerating indigenous trees such as acacia and re-growing pasture in the same field to cushion her livestock during extreme drought periods.

Africa’s indigenous trees coppice when cut, their stumps looking like weeds, but when farmers select the tallest and straight stems and cull the rest, trees rapidly grow.

Tree pruning where excess branches are removed to encourage healthy growth. — Florence Namembwa, a smallholder farmer in Chamkama, northern ASAL part of Uganda practicing FMNR on her farm. A beneficiary of training, she has learned to regenerate trees on her farm, which provides her with fuelwood. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times

“At first, the practice seemed [like] it would take long, but with patience and continuous pruning of the trees, benefits started to trickle. My children could not spend time having to fetch fuel wood mile away. I started getting fuel from tree branches, a product of pruning of growing sprouts,” Nancy told an interview at her farm.

Nancy’s children field soon started to contrast with the bare bleak ones of her neighbors. Her livestock started to thrive, with milk production increasing due to the availability of quality pasture.

“Before practicing FMNR, I used to get merely five-liter of milk a day from my cows, selling it to middlemen who used to buy at low prices,” says Nancy, adding that since her milk production increased, she now sells her milk to a nearby dairy facility.

A female farmer in Homa Bay mulches pawpaw fruit trees. — Juliana Aoko, a 52-year old farmer mulches pawpaw fruit trees on her farm in Lambwe. Mulching helps reduce moisture in areas where there is extreme sun exposure. She has learned to plant indigenous trees on her farm, which are adaptable to the climate. Credit: Robert Kibet / Ubuntu Times

Lilian Dodzo, World Vision Kenya Country Director says the decision to train and capacity-build farmers with simple skills on how to mitigate against the changing climate is such a big phenomenon in the current environment.

“It is important to build skills in our communities to find very simple and low-cost ways in which we can mitigate against climate change to be able to build the resilience of our communities,” Dodzo told in an interview.

She adds, “Our greatest interest in these activities is to see what it contributes to the child well-being. With access to pasture and more milk to sell, the income goes all the way to helping pay for children school fees, buy food and develop gardens where women can grow drought-resistant crops.”

According to Clare Rogers, World Vision Australia Chief Executive Officer, Nancy’s courageous move has not only changed her family but the community and farms around her area, with her neighbors starting to adopt the same approach after losing livestock to drought being an inspiration for the future.

“Nancy and her husband had the courage to try something new. They began to make the change happen here, and now her having to walk miles away to collect firewood solved. The changed landscape, availability of firewood and pasture means her kids can go to school,” she said.

“Women can change the world. This was not an easy journey but the fruit of the work after they did this was so obvious that it became very hard for people to deny,” Clare told a group of local farmers who had come to see the success in Nancy’s farm model.

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