Fertilizer prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led a number of farmers around the world to consider or reconsider non-chemical alternatives.  For some years now, family farmers in Kenya’s Kisumu area have replaced chemical fertilizers with organic ones. Organic fertilizers do more than cut input costs and increase resilience...

A major meeting this week brought together farmers, bankers, governments and development partners from across Africa and beyond to discuss ways to ensure smallholder farmers, the backbone of the region’s food system, have access to the finance they need to improve and scale up sustainable forest and farm management practices. The...

Operationalizing effective subnational veterinary services as major contributor to disease surveillance, reporting, diagnoses and One Health requires resources and mindset change. Here we describe workforce capacity building in animal health in Kenya and an approach that can be used to skill-up this workforce to respond beyond animal health challenges to...

I grew up in a place known as Kabazi, Subukia Constituency and Nakuru County in Kenya. As a child of a family farming household, I had to participate in farming activities alongside my education. The family depended on its member’s labour to be able to provide adequate and nutritious food...

The Family Farming Knowledge Platform in collaboration with the Barefoot Guide Connection organized a series of “writeshops”, writing classes to support practitioners to write their own experience, generating knowledge which highlight the practices, changes, innovations and impacts of what they do in support of family farming. These writeshops represented an opportunity...

Murang'a County Government, in collaboration with the Institute for Culture and Ecology (ICE) and other partners, has enacted The Murang'a Agroecology Policy 2022-2032 and The Murang'a County Agroecology Development Act, 2022. The Act encourages the use of organic farming practices and the production of organic products. The county recognizes that...

Zoonoses account for most of the emerging and re-emerging infections in Kenya and in other low to medium-income countries across the world. The human-livestock-wildlife interface provides a nexus where transmission and spread of these zoonotic diseases could occur among communities farming in these areas. We sought to identify perceptions of...

Across the arid landscape of northern Kenya, road signs proclaim projects aimed at building 'resilience' among pastoral communities. This is a region where frequent droughts, animal diseases, insecurity and structural exclusion affect all pastoral livelihoods.Resilience - the ability to transform or recover quickly from challenges - is the idea behind...

Mary Wairimu Oloo, who lives in Kenya’s Trans Nzoia County, moved back to her family’s coffee farm after retiring from a government role. Since then she has been diligently improving productivity on the farm, diversifying her income and helping others along the way.  Mary Wairimu Oloo is not just a wife...

In this article, Francis Shivonje, the Policy and Advocacy National Coordinator for the Biovision Foundation in Kenya, underscores the importance of a National Agroecology Strategy. He highlights that smallholder farms, responsible for 75% of Kenya's agricultural production, are pivotal for both food security and the nation's economic stability. Agroecology, by...

As the drought in Kenya persists, pastoralists in the region are struggling as millions of livestock die and vast swaths of crops perish. Food insecurity affects approximately 4.4 million people in the country. International food agencies have described the situation as a dire humanitarian crisis, emphasizing the critical need to...

A webinar titled ‘The sound and vision of organic farming for rural audiences’ was held by Access Agriculture on 14th March for the English-speaking audience. For the French-speaking audience, a webinar on the same theme, titled ‘Le son et la vision de l’agriculture biologique pour les audiences rurales’ was held...

The Livelihoods Mt Elgon project aims at improving the livelihoods of 30,000 small-holder farmers by empowering farmers with sustainable agricultural practices including agroforestry, and establishing connections to markets through 15 cooperatives. The project is a partnership between Livelihoods Fund, Vi Agroforestry and Brookside Dairy. The project will lead to: -...

Hanging vegetable gardens is an easy to implement practice allowing to grow healthy vegetables with no land and little inputs. Hence, it is very suitable for low-income families, slum dwellers, the landless, women who often have poor access to land and need to stay close to their homes, as well...

In June, Solidaridad launched a four-year food and nutrition security and climate-resilience project funded by the Louis Dreyfus Foundation to drive sustainable maize production in Bungoma County, Kenya.

Cassava should have a clean, fresh scent and a pure white center when cut open. Fresh roots also have a pleasant taste.When using bitter cassava, ferment the peeled roots for 3 days to leach out the poison cyanide, Then wash the roots.

Food and Agricultural Organization’s Integrated Country Approach for boosting decent jobs for youth in agrifood systems carried out a digital readiness assessment of youth in agribusiness in partnership with the Eastern Africa Farmers Federation and youth-led organizations in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda.  Over 360 young male and female entrepreneurs engaged through...

I grew up in a place known as Kabazi, Subukia Constituency and Nakuru County in Kenya. As a child of a family farming household, I had to participate in farming activities alongside my education. The family depended on its member’s labour to be able to provide adequate and nutritious food...

In this paper, we discuss the changes taking place in the Kenyan seed sector, with a focus on potato. The changes paint an extremely disturbing picture of how draconian agricultural and seed laws and policies are undermining smallholder farmers and their seed and food systems.

Despite the fact that the latest IPCC report recognized "African indigenous knowledge systems" as smart adaptation strategies against worsening climate change, this article argues that smallholder farmers who have benefited from planting their indigenous seeds are under threat from the government's law, which has placed restrictions on the informal seed...