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By David Njagi
In Kenya, less than 20 percent of the total land area is suitable for crop farming due to inadequate rains and degraded soils, says Dikson Kibata, the technical officer at the country’s Agriculture and Food Authority.
But farmers like Benedict Manyi are learning how to make degraded lands productive after joining the DryDev programme in 2016. The World Agroforestry (ICRAF) led project which is working with farmers in Kenya, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali and Niger was established in 2013.
Funded by the Netherlands ministry of foreign affairs and World Vision, DryDev has been training and helping farmers in Africa transition from subsistence farming and reliance on charity, to agri business that is environmentally friendly.
“I hardly harvested enough before I started practicing dryland agroforestry. Now I get surplus, value and more,’ says the father of four, adding that he can harvest up to six 90 kilograms bags of produce from a two acre parcel whether the rains are adequate or not.
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