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An Overview Of Our Solution

Environmental degradation is the primary source of major production challenges and a primary contributor to loss of biodiversity. Most of the degradation is by human activity as they acquire livelihood. There has been rapid growth in population while natural resources continue to dwindle in amount and accessibility. This has resulted in major conflict in Kenya and other developing countries which mostly depend on rain fed agriculture. Sadly, this will continue to happen if nothing is done. There is need to conserve biodiversity as well as have sustainable land management practices adopted by all for effective use limited available resources.. Intensive capacity building as well as having alternative livelihoods which exerts minimum pressure on land situation is important.

Who is this solution impacting?

Community Type

Rural

Organization type

Other

Ecosystem (select all that apply)

Forests

Grasslands

Population impacted

8500 people

Size of agricultural area

2000 ha

Production quantity

2000 ha sustainable land management

People employed

10 people

Describe your solution

Knowledge on sustainable land management including soil conservation was minimal. Firewood and charcoal are the major sources of energy and saw milling for timber a common livelihood with people living near the forest. This information guided us and we carried out community barazas and together with the community identified major problems in the catchment, developed a problem tree out of which we generated an objective tree. After a participatory process and going through the objective tree we developed a community action plan which guided us in the implementation process. The major highlights of the action plan implemented were; 1. Have alternative livelihoods which will increase farmers’ incomes and exert zero or minimal pressure on land .Three enterprises were identified; Apiculture, aquaculture and agro-forestry (tree seedlings for sale).2. Every farmer to adopt sustainable land management practices in his/her farm; this was from a basket of technologies including water harvesting structures, soil conservation structures ; soil fertility management technologies including; composting, conservation tillage, crop rotation, tree planting depending on the menu relevant to each farm 3. Intensive capacity building for the farmers to be done by the Green Global Consortium on the three enterprises and on sustainable land management practices. 4. Collaboration with relevant stakeholders like banks and other financial institutions for ease of implementation

Describe your implementation

The Kikuyu Kinale catchment was zoned into micro catchments for ease of operation, we had a total of 29 micro catchments as the project area .Alternative livelihoods were flagged in all the micro catchments and farmers enlisted in their preferred enterprise; while each micro-catchment team developed an SLM hotspot list on critical areas that need interventions for project support. Some farmers were carrying out the enterprise before while others enlisted to start engaging in the selected enterprise. Baseline survey of individual enterprises was carried out and gaps identified. Targets were set by the service provider in collaboration with the farmers, they came up with enterprise development plans and capacity building in each enterprises commenced. Capacity building on sustainable land management technologies was done concurrently in all the enterprises. For SLM three models were used; farmer initiative, Payment for Ecosystem Services (farmers were given incentives for work done) and Youth for SLM (youth were engaged to excavate the SLM structures). The enterprises selected were in what was referred to as the Natural Resource Management value chain namely; beekeeping; aquaculture and tree nurse/agro-forestry and they did not interfere with the existing farming systems but were complementing the same. The enterprises already existed but with low productivity; and the capacity building was therefore a felt need; where they were new, they did not take up much land or were to occupy previously under-utilized areas without interfering with biodiversity. As outputs the incomes generated from the farms /enterprises and the immediate benefits from SLM technologies encouraged more community members to come on board. Vegetative cover also increased through planting of crops; grass strips, forest and fruit trees. Some of the key obstacles as we implemented included; slow adoption of SLM technology due to the labour intensive nature of the activities.

External connections

1. Kenya Agricultural Productivity and Sustainable Land Management Project (KAPSLMP) through support from World Bank - who provided the funds for project implementation. 2. Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries. 3. Forestry department 4. Water Resource Users Associations 5. Community Forest Association collaboration and mobilization of members in identifying challenges and towards implementation 6. Local administration 7. Financial institutions 8. Lenana Bee keepers 9. Kiamumbi farm Aquaculture project 10. Ministry of youth

What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?

In the past three decades, agriculture has remained central to Kenya’s economic development constituting 28% of to the country’s gross domestic product and accounting 65 % of export earnings. The crop, livestock and fisheries sub sectors contribute 78%, 20% and 2% to the agriculture GDP respectively. (GoK 2007 .Kenya Vision 2030. Ministry of Finance and Planning). The country’s reliance on agriculture and dependence on imports underscores the need for sustainable, resilient increases in agricultural productivity for food security and economic growth through environmental conservation and climate smart technologies. Forests are vital in Kenya. 77 percent of the country’s primary energy supply is based on traditional biomass, mainly wood. Kenyan forests are also important groundwater distillation areas. Moreover, the East-African country produces 70 percent of its electricity using water. The forest cover has declined to a low of 1.7 percent.

Describe the context in which you are operating

Kenya’s agricultural area extends over 48% of total land use in the country. While 78% of this is captured as meadows and pastures, the remaining 22% is dedicated to agriculture made up of arable land (21%) and permanent crops (1%).The most important agricultural regions are located in Central, Western and Rift Valley areas. The great majority of farming systems are small scale and rain fed, with farmers owning an average of 0.2 to 3 ha of land. Small scale farming is characterized by a mixed crop- livestock system and partially commercial production occupies approximately one third of the country’s land area. These systems account for 78% of total agricultural production.Kenyan agriculture faces productivity and food security challenges tied to a lack of inputs and irrigation, limited access to markets, market information and extension/training services all which thwart agricultural investments and create further gender inequalities and inequities
Accelerated population growth and an annual growth rate of 2.59% from 2008 to 2014 has led to a growing demand for food and natural resources. At the same time rural migration and adverse climatic conditions have led to lower agricultural productivity and a shift to non farm income generating activities.

How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?

The major results realized were adoption of sustainable land management technologies, farms depending with the terrain had retention ditches, cut off drains, fanya juus, grass strips. This contributed to significant reduction in soil loss, soil fertility reduction, and helped in increased water infiltration increasing productivity. Conservation agriculture implemented contributed in conservation of biodiversity. The springs protected ensured availability of safe and clean drinking water .Other results realized were an empowered community able to identify SLM challenges facing them looking for strategies and coming together to address them. There was also income generation that facilitated improved living standards

Language(s)

Which language(s) are spoken in the area where your solution is implemented?

Water

Soil conservation structures have aided in reduction of water loss through run off and instead enhanced infiltration that has increased productivity. The reduced run off has also reduced pollution of waters giving clean drinking water. Payment of Ecosystem Services in the Sasumua Dam area ensured less contamination of the dam which supplies water to 20% of the Nairobi population. Springs were protected and it was part of conserving biodiversity since some not protected have ended up drying.

Food Security/Nutrition

Soil conservation structures helped in maintaining soil fertility, retain water in the farm and as a return have increased production. Availing alternative livelihoods like fish farming offered additional source of protein and omega 3 which was not common. Diversified use of honey offered additional medicinal and nutritional solutions. Increased productivity resulted to increased incomes which increased the purchasing power, farmers were able to buy what they needed.

Economic/Sustainable Development

The farmers adopted new enterprises while others identified gaps in their current ones and out of the trainings were able to grow their incomes. Increased production necessitated formation of cooperatives; fruit and honey cooperatives which ensure sustainable market and continuous tree planting especially fruit trees .They have also collaborated with relevant stakeholders has e.g. ministry of agriculture, forest department, banks etc.

Climate

Farmers have adopted climate SMART agriculture that will result in sustainable production without interfering with biodiversity. Increased vegetative cover from tree planting, grass strips and conservation agriculture implemented will contribute greatly to carbon sequestration

Sustainability

This work can be replicated in other micro catchments, catchments and other countries.
Sustainability
To ensure sustainability of the activities and continuous income generation, we had several strategies
1. Formed a bee farmer cooperative for collective marketing of their honey and bee products.
2. Supported fish farmers in Kinangop area to come up with a marketing strategy and a business plan as well as execute it.
3. Trained six youth groups on environmental conservation engaged them in carrying out youth for SLM sub component.
4. Awareness creation in environmental conservation led to planting of many fruit trees.
5. Collaboration established with Government officers, financial institutions and other service providers

Return on investment

The projected invested a total of USD 86,000 over a period of 4 years as service provision fees and facilitation; while an additional amount of about 86,000 USD was invested for community micro-projects mainly incentives and materials for rehabilitating degraded areas and spring protection directly handled by farmers. From this investment 88 groups were formed and 25 groups are vibrant and are actively engaging in apiculture, aquaculture and tree nursery production; 9 springs were protected; 500,000 forest trees, 74,000 fruit trees planted and 2000ha covered in various SLM technologies. A total of 8500 farmers were trained using various methodologies.

How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?

The basic concept of the project was to increase productivity and thus incomes; without negatively impacting on the environment. The enterprises and activities undertaken were not entirely new and what was provided mainly was capacity building to ensure farmers were able to diversify their incomes and also adopt sustainable land management technologies with a clear understanding on what impact they had on yields and overall climate change activities. Replicating the same in the rest of the neighbor-hood and adjacent area is therefore possible and the positive gains of improved livelihoods and environmental conservation as well as visible positive impacts on fertility will be adopted . The project was implemented in 4 counties previously and we would like to replicate the project in two counties where this was done. The Counties are Nyandarua and Kiambu and the plan for replication is to expand the areas where the PES and Y4SLM models did not cover.

Overview

Green Global Consortium