Kenya speeds up disaster alerts, but locals struggle to tune in

By David Njagi

Sitting under an acacia tree to cool off northern Kenya’s biting heat, Bonface Ewaar conversed in low tones with his two colleagues as they worked on contents of an open document.

Ewaar, a youth leader in Katilu village, was not sharing social trends with his colleagues, but the team was deep in the business of translating a disaster alert bulletin into the local vernacular language.

“Translating is a difficult task. But serving my community this way means a lot to me because they are able to understand and take action against disasters,” said Ewaar in a one-on-one interview, adding that they do the translations in groups of three.

Worsening disasters in Kenya have left communities thirsting for information on how to prepare for these shocks, according to Hussein Noor Adille, the chief of party at NAWIRI, a five-year humanitarian project funded by USAID.

NAWIRI, a consortium project led by the international charity, Mercy Corps, is a 100-million-dollar program running in arid Kenya.

To soften the disaster blow, the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), a government agency, has been preparing and releasing monthly, and sometimes weekly early warning bulletins to climate troubled communities.

But the English versions have not been helping much because most Kenyans living within these communities cannot read and write. That was until youth like Ewaar, working with NAWIRI, came up with the idea of translating them into local vernacular languages.

“People who cannot read will not understand the risks they will be facing, how the disaster is progressing and market changes in terms of food prices. The translated versions serve this marginalized public,” said Adille in an interview.

Adille said NDMA releases the bulletins in English to county governments. The document is then passed to ward development committees, which are lower administrative units within counties, for access to communities.

It is from this administrative unit that Ewaar and his team pick the bulletins, translate them into Turkana language and pass the knowledge to the community through word of mouth or local radio station broadcasts.

At his village alone, his team of about eight youth who have basic education, manage to reach over 100 locals. They however volunteer to do this task.

“We are not paid to do the translations. We would do more if the government recognized this is a valuable service and compensate us. It is really changing people’s lives in terms of disaster preparedness,” said Ewaar.

Local authorities cannot estimate how many youth in Kenya are involved in the translations because the service is voluntary. But Adille of NAWIRI said the youth groups can consist of up to a dozen volunteers in a ward administrative unit.

And as lean as three, according to Abdulkarim Salesa, a youth from Isiolo county. Salesa said few youth are willing to volunteer because they are busy helping their families raise resources to navigate the raging drought.

The only way Salesa and his team are able to engage the youth is by pleading with them during community meetings to help with the translations.

“Sometimes the language used in the bulletins is difficult to understand. This is another reason we struggle to have volunteers,” said Salesa.

One way the translated disaster feeds are helping communities is through early treatment for drought related illnesses like malnutrition and respiratory illnesses, according to Moitan Akitela, a mother from Nawapeto village in northern Kenya.

During the early season ending in April, Akitela heard from the local radio that her village would experience prolonged drought due to failed rains in most parts of Kenya. The dry stretch, she learned, could also put her child in danger of malnutrition.

To her, this meant walking for over 10 kilometers from her home to the nearest health facility for medical checks, a distance she struggles to cover because lack of enough food has weakened her health.

She also risked being exposed to skin burns due to excess heat and respiratory infections due to dust storms. When there are floods, local movement is completely cut off, she said.

But reporting her situation to the village administrator before the drought worsened managed to get her connected to the NAWIRI programme, which organizes weekly health checks and treatment within villages.

She has been part of a group of women who usually gather for these weekly medical clinics at a community meeting place near her village.

“I feel I am part of Kenya,” she said in a one-on-one interview, meaning that she no longer feels marginalized from the rest of the country due to disasters.

Children are treated for malnutrition and get immunized while locals are treated for diseases like malaria, diarrhea and upper respiratory tract infections during the health clinics, according to Mark Lominito, the health systems strengthening advisor at NAWIRI, in Turkana, northern Kenya.

Families also receive a cash stimulus of KES 5,000 (about $43) every month to soften the shock families face due to the effects of drought, he said.

“The money helps my family get through very harsh times. I buy food and stock it at home. This way my children cannot miss a meal and school,” said Asuron Amodoi in a one-on-one interview, adding that the disaster alerts guide her to ration food so that supplies can last long.

Peter Lokol, a herder who also doubles up as a community health volunteer said he reduced the number of livestock in his herd when he learned that there would be a prolonged drought in northern Kenya. This way, he has cut the risk of losing all his livestock to hunger.

For Alice Eporon however, being well informed about the disaster situation in northern Kenya helps her plan her irrigated garden along the Perkerra river, which passes through her Katilu village.

In situations where harsh weather reduces the amount of water flowing through the river, she cuts on the amount of produce planted in her garden.

“The alerts help me protect the river from stress by reducing water abstraction during the dry stretch,” said Eporon in a one-on-one interview.

Craig Redmond, Mercy Corps senior vice president for programs, said the disaster alerts help local authorities intervene better, especially at this time when charities are facing supply cuts due to funds being diverted to battle the refugee crisis in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Salesa said sometimes the government delays the release of bulletins, while he has witnessed an alert that was inaccurate.

He said one solution that can help is by developing a disaster alert app and tapping the power of technology.

Ewaar and his team of youth have taken this lead with whatsapp.

During field scouting beats to find out problems troubling their community, they take photos of the dead livestock using their smart phones.

They then post the photos through whatsapp to the county and national governments, as well as charities working at his village.

The government in collaboration with the charities are then able to respond with aid, distributing it to affected families, said Ewaar.

“It is a challenging job. But it is a game changer in terms of how local solutions can help manage worsening disasters among communities,” he said.

Clash over dying water sources puts Kenya’s food systems in a bind

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Officials from WWF-Kenya enjoying a break on river Malewa’s water course during the journey of water campaign on 23/05/2022. DAVID NJAGI.

By David Njagi

Ruth Wairimu, a farmer from Gatamaiyu village near Lake Naivasha in central Kenya, has for years grown greens using waters flowing into the lake. Lately, she is not sure of a future as a fresh produce farmer.

Like tens of thousands of smallholders in Kenya, Wairimu is under pressure from nonprofit groups to stop drawing water from natural sources, where they accuse farmers of too much abstraction-and pollution.

Wairimu is not sure whether she is the reason the country’s water sources are said to be under threat. For being a law-abiding citizen, she is willing to comply. But this could mean food trouble.

“With water, there is food. I have used it to irrigate my small farm all my life,” she said, adding that this is how farmers from her village have been protecting the local food system from collapse as extreme weather led to prolonged drought seasons.

Lack of consensus between communities and nonprofit groups on what is ailing Kenya’s water sources and how to save them is leading to a worsening food crisis in the country. As irrigation dependent systems face closure, experts said increased pollution of water sources is responsible for declining fish stocks.

During a recent campaign to lobby against threats facing water sources, Maina Kimwaki, the secretary of Wanjohi Water Resource Users Association (WRUA), a community nonprofit in central Kenya, walked the ‘journey of water’ organized by WWF-Kenya.

His task was to observe river Malewa from its source in central Kenya to its mouth on the edges of Lake Naivasha.

According to him, acres of eucalyptus trees grown by farmers and irrigation pipes placed at various points pumping volumes of water into the open fresh produce fields, are drying the narrowing river.

“The eucalyptus trees must be uprooted and farmers stopped from abstracting water if we are to save this river and the region’s water system,” said Kimwaki, adding that river Malewa is the source of 90% of waters supplied into lake Naivasha.

According to a report by research agency Dalberg, just 3% of Kenya’s arable land is irrigated, while smallholder farmers produce about 78% of the country’s food, mainly through rain-fed agriculture.

All his life, Mathaga Gacigi, an elder from central Kenya has witnessed the region’s water and food systems support each other. To him, the shrinking water sources are due to ‘an act of God’.

In the 1970s, it was difficult to cross most rivers on foot because they were always flooded. These days, even a toddler can cross the low water courses by their own, he said jokingly.

“I do not believe it is farmers who are making rivers to lose their waters. It is lack of adequate rains that has led to the decline of rivers,” said Gacigi, adding that rains started declining and being erratic at his village in 1973.

Researchers at the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KEMFRI) said the continued stress on the country’s water sources coupled with pollution could worsen food insecurity in the country.

Dickson Odongo, a research technologist at KEMFRI, said farming along rivers with agrochemicals like fertilizers causes pollution at their mouths, which could be lakes.

According to him, nutrients from the fertilizer causes algae, one of the major plant colonies in lakes, to flower. This flowering blocks sunlight-a key ingredient needed for plants to make food-from reaching lower algae colonies.

These colonies starve, die and begin decaying, a process that consumes huge amounts of oxygen in water bodies shared with fish stocks.

“When fish stocks are denied oxygen to live on, they die,” said Odongo.

While traders abstract much of the water to feed their businesses like car washes, schools, hospitals are also responsible for effluent and waste dumping in rivers, according to community groups.

One solution to restore threatened water sources in Kenya would be for farmers to plant lots of indigenous trees in the country, said David Musyoki, the Rift Valley basin area coordinator at Water Resources Authority, a government agency.

But farmers misrepresented this solution by planting ground water consuming trees like eucalyptus, leading to the worsening food and water crisis in the country, said Musyoki.

Local administrators like chiefs have been directed by the government to lead in uprooting eucalyptus trees in Kenya to soften the blow on water and food systems.

But Jacob Karanja, a community leader said diversifying into eucalyptus growing was a coping strategy due to declining crop yields. Rain-fed agriculture is not sustaining food systems in rural Kenya, he said.

“Eucalyptus is a very attractive tree to grow because it is fast maturing and on demand in the Kenyan market. If my crops cannot make me money, then I will sell eucalyptus poles to get money to buy food,” said Karanja, another farmer from central Kenya.

Another solution would be for the government to introduce controlled irrigation by investing in community dams, said Musyoki.

Between March to June this year, 3.5 million Kenyans were projected to be food insecure by global charity, reliefweb.

And if communities cannot reach a consensus on how to save Kenya’s endangered water sources, then the country’s food systems could collapse, according to Japheth Onyando, a researcher at Egerton University, a government institution.

“If we cannot be able to take care of the water resources we have, then the next option would be for us to stop reproducing because we will not have food for the growing population. It is our choice, our rivers and our food,” said Onyando, adding that declining water sources and their pollution are on the rise all over the country.

Meanwhile, officials at the Kenya Small Scale Farmers Forum (KESSFF)said Kenya’s ailing water sources is part of a global problem that is being cooked continents away through fossil fuel burning, resulting to global warming.

According to Justus Lavi, the Forum’s national general secretary, global warming affects the natural system which forms the planet’s rain cycles. In Africa, disruption of this system has led to inadequate rains and prolonged droughts, a mix that is threatening the continent’s food security.

“It is unfair to blame farmers for all the problems that are affecting our water and food systems because those passing the blame are funded by the same sources who are responsible for worsening effects of climate change,” said Lavi.

Kenyans bet on crypto to unlock social gigs

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By David Njagi

Byrones Khainga may not have graced this year’s fifth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 5.2.), held late February in Nairobi.

But the director of technical services at the Human Needs Project, a nonprofit serving Kenyans living in Kibera slum with safe water and clean environment through green solutions, is sure his community made a lasting print among environmental defenders.  

Previously, Khainga led youth and women in Kibera in collecting plastic waste littering the slum and burned it aiming to clean up the environment. They have taken this further by recycling waste into art that can be traded as digital tokens.  

Working with partners like Benjamin Von Wong, an international artist and activist who lobbies against single use plastics, Khainga’s team used waste collected from the slum to build a 30-foot-tall plastic tap.

Installed at the UN complex in Nairobi during the meeting, the giant plastic tap aimed to signify that the world is discharging single use plastics in patterns similar to how water flows from a tap, leading to environmental pollution.

Khainga’s team were not commissioned by the UN, but raised funds through the crypto market, demonstrating that technology can unlock opportunities where waste can be recycled into art and traded as digital tokens to generate money for social causes.

“The funds raised for the plastic tap were paid through the Solana cryptocurrency. This was something new for us but it is now going to be a trend informing how we implement our social activities,” said Khainga, during a one-on-one interview.

Using raffles and auctions, Von Wong led the fundraising which managed to collect 700 $ worth of Solana (about $66,000) by early March 2022.

Like in South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana, the crypto market is becoming a popular means of raising funds for social driven projects in Kenya.

Roselyn Wanjiru, a researcher at the Association, said raising funds through the crypto market reduces barriers of entry for investments in seed projects, or those that are starting and need capital boost to take off.

This is because funds can be raised from different sources irrespective of the capital that an investor holds, she said.

It is also a fast way of raising funds for social causes because it can easily navigate around complex financial systems like investor accreditation that require proof of identity, said Wanjiru.

“Blockchain is one of the key technologies which is part of the fourth industrial revolution. Its social impact is that we are in that phase of adoption where we are seeing more companies using it to offer solutions to communities,” she said in a virtual interview.

The Central Bank of Kenya does not have data on crypto market in the country because trading in digital currencies is still unregulated. 

But Africa Data, a digital publication for the continent’s business community, said in a January news article that some 4.8 million Kenyans, or about 16% of adult internet users own a cryptocurrency.

https://africabusinesscommunities.com/africadata/16-of-kenyan-adult-internet-users-in-kenya-own-cryptocurrency-report/

Freedom from regulation-which does not make cryptocurrencies illegal-has made the technology a fast way of raising funds between people who are continents apart, said Wanjiru.

At the human needs project in Kibera slum, the plastic art was traded through the Degen Trash Pandas, a Solana based Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) community, according to a press release.

It created temporary jobs for about 100 residents in the slum, where women and youth were recruited to collect, clean, and sort plastic waste to prepare it for recycling into artistic creations.

The nonprofit aims to create hundreds more jobs on a permanent basis aiming to battle single use plastics in Kibera, said the press release.

It is not only in waste recycling where the crypto market is helping serve social good in Kenya. The technology is also being used to raise funds for education, food security, health and even women empowerment, said Wanjiru.

One reason for the growing appetite for the crypto system in fund raising is because traditional channels of funding are drying up, as the world struggles to recover from shocks like the COVID 19 pandemic.

Another is because social groups are fast adopting technology to drive economies in communities that felt left out by mainstream financial systems, she said.

To unlock opportunities in Kenya’s small economies, the nonprofit, Grassroots Economics has been issuing community currencies to poor Kenyans, which beneficiaries use to stock up their small and medium enterprises.

Sarafu, which means coins in English, is a virtual token issued by the nonprofit to over 50,000 struggling Kenyans, who also use it to pay for basics like food, health, and even shelter, according to officials.

https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/

Kenya Harmony Gender Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) aims to make the blockchain sector gender neutral by training women on how to trade in the crypto market.

https://talk.harmony.one/t/kenya-harmony-gender-dao/8939

At the national center for artificial intelligence and robotics in Nigeria, innovators are working with digital hubs in Africa, including Kenya, to address food insecurity in the continent through blockchain, said Usman Gambo Abdullahi, the center’s director.

“Blockchain has unique features like the ability to trace the origin of produce and also a database that cannot be tampered with. This makes it a key technology for addressing food insecurity in the continent,” said Abdullahi during a virtual meeting on digital transformation in agriculture for food security in Africa.

Abdullahi said a database is being created to monitor the flow of produce at countries’ point of entries so that officials can be able to trace its origin and destination, aiming to reduce food waste.

Caribou Digital, a social enterprise that uses innovation to connect farmers with markets works with Kenya’s farmers who have a good following on their online community groups.

The industrial body is introducing social agriculture, a system that simplifies digital technologies aimed at addressing challenges facing farmers through a bottom-up approach.

A bottom-up approach is one that ensures a big share of problem-solving resources are available at the farm, instead of being spent at office spaces, said, Emrys Schoemaker, a researcher and strategist at Caribou Digital.

According to him, social agriculture relies much on social media platforms like facebook. But mistrust among the social media community is slowing progress in online transactions.

This is where profiling food systems as digital tokens come in because they even out mistrust issues.

“Digital tokens are a reliable proof that somebody has given you something like a loan. It is a trusted token of something of value which we aim to introduce among farmers,” said Schoemaker during a virtual interview.

Abdullahi said the main challenge facing blockchain growth in Africa is because few people understand how it works.

“The ongoing meltdown where the crypto market has shed more than half of its value is also raising doubt about its stability as a risk-free system,” said Joe Mucheru, Kenya’s cabinet secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communications, during a media briefing.

Felix Osumu, the finance director at the Human Needs Project said setting up infrastructure to receive funds raised through the crypto system was the biggest challenge they faced.

But Big Mich, a choreographer who trains slum youth on how to develop and market their talent said electricity and internet penetration in Kenya is still a challenge for the struggling poor because it limits trading digital tokens through the crypto system.

Mich aims to develop her artistic creations into digital tokens to raise money for social causes in slum communities.

“There are concerns that crypto mining is contributing to global warming because of the huge amount of energy it consumes. But we must not overlook the good things this technology can provide for us,” said Mich during a one-on-one interview.

While she is working to market her dancing moves as digital tokens, she said technology helped slum communities mobilize food and washing materials during the COVID 19 lockdown.

Farmers restore Kenya’s forest to save endangered water sources

Paul Learpanai, a local living in Archers Post in north eastern Kenya takes stock of the Ewaso Nyiro river on 19/11/2021. DAVID NJAGI

By David Njagi

The fifth session of theUnited Nations Environmental Assembly (UNEA 5.2) ended with 14 resolutions aiming to curb pollution, protect and restore nature.

But to a group of farmers conversing in low tones as they cleared patches of vegetation inside the Aberdare forest in central Kenya, their purpose in conservation began even before UNEA 5.2 took off in Nairobi.

The section where they are working is the size of two football fields. It has been deforested due to frequent forest fires sparked by honey poachers. They will plant knee high saplings there, which will bloom into a restored tree cover within the next decade.

That simple process will recharge the forest’s natural engine, saving millions of Kenyans from water stress, according to Victor Kabutbei, the forest manager at north Kinangop forest station.

“Communities are seeing direct benefits in terms of water easement and a source of pasture for livestock when there is prolonged drought. Women can also collect firewood from the forest to use as cooking fuel,” says Kabutbei. 

Aberdare forest, which covers an area of about 103,300 hectares, is one of Kenya’s water towers, serving millions of Kenyans living in both upstream and downstream communities. It is a UNESCO world heritage site and home to small and big game like elephants, buffaloes, lions, cheetahs and leopards.

Over the years however, it has been facing increased deforestation and degradation due to forest fires, illegal logging, poaching, and land degradation. This has worsened water stress especially for communities living in lowlands like pastoralists, says Kabutbei.

For instance, he says, the forest recharges Lake Olbolossat in central Kenya, which is the source of north eastern Kenya’s main supplier of fresh water, the Ewaso Nyiro river. It stretches from its source and flows all the way to the Lorian swamp near the Kenya-Somalia border to the east.

Paul Learpanai, a local living in Archers Post in north eastern Kenya, has witnessed the river decline from a giant that flowed over the 15-foot-high bridge at his village to a stream that locals can easily cross on foot.

This is something they could not dare do during the river’s high season for fear of being swept away, he says as a distant memory flashed on his troubled face.

Like thousands of pastoralists here, Learpanai depends on livestock for his livelihood. To him, pasture and water are the twin engines that keep the northern Kenya economic machine running. 

“I feel very scared. If this river disappears, we might all die,” said the 30-year-old.

The reason the river has shrunk to such low levels is a combination of water abstraction from its upper source, property development, and worsening climate change, says Ibrahim Kabero, the program officer at Merti Integrated Development Programme (MID-P), a local NGO working in north-eastern Kenya.

Kabero and his team at MID-P have traced the pressure the river is facing from its source in central Kenya, and followed it through nine counties in central and north-eastern Kenya, that the river passes through.

Their investigation found out that flower and horticultural farms at Lake Olbolossat abstract huge volumes of water to grow fresh produce.

Property development in towns where the river passes by have also led to demand for building materials supplies like timber and sand, while charcoal serves the growing population with cooking fuel.

This has led to widespread cutting of trees in the Aberdare ecosystem, including immature ones that have not reached the harvesting age of 18 to 28 years.

“Severe sand harvesting in three counties-both upstream and downstream-are also responsible for the river’s reduced water flow,” says Kabero.

According to Wamiti Wanyoike, a researcher at the National Museums of Kenya,water abstraction causes less volumes to reach communities living on the downstream part of the river. Logging on the other hand reduces a forest’s ability to recharge the fresh water source system.

“Both the river and the lake are threatened. I feel there is a sense of urgency to prevent further pressure on these water resources and the consequences of this misuse in the near future. And it is not pleasant,” says Wanyoike.

This is why Learpanai is visibly upset. Learpanai is from the Borana tribe. But during the 30 years that he has lived here, he has seen the river support other tribes in north-eastern Kenya, like the Samburu, Turkana and Rendille.

The river has been serving communities here with water for domestic use, livestock, as well as an attraction for tourists visiting the Samburu national reserve, he says.

“When there is plenty of water available for everyone, there is peace. But when there is little available, conflict over water often escalates among pastoralist communities and crop farmers due to competition,” said the father of two.

One way the river is being conserved is through educating both upstream and downstream communities about the importance of Ewaso Nyiro river to the stability of north eastern Kenya.

Molu Tepo, the program manager at MID-P says the organization does this through annual camel caravans that begun in 2014, to promote peace among downstream and upstream communities.

Another is by lobbying upstream communities to conserve its source and support system in the Aberdare forest basin. Some conservation charities are responding to this call.

Working with WWF-Kenya, communities are restoring degraded sections of Aberdare forest through tree planting and plantation establishment, according to Peter Muriuki Murage, the chairman of North Kinangop Community Forest Association (CFA).

Murage says farmers have managed to restore about 100 hectares of degraded sections with over 40,000 saplings.

CFAs in collaboration with the charity have also rolled out programs to educate locals on how to harvest honey without using fire to scare the bees away.

“Farmers are trained to wear special clothing for harvesting honey. But if they have to do it the traditional way, they are advised to carry water along for dousing the burning embers after harvesting,” says Murage.

Caroline Njiru, the WWF Kenya coordinator for Naivasha landscape says the Aberdare forest landscape restoration project is part of the Africa Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative (AFR100) aiming to restore 100 million hectares of land in the continent by 2030.

With a five-year window funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), it aims to restore 500 hectares with mixed forests, 100 hectares under farmland and 40 kilometers of riparian land, she said.

The year 2020 to 2030 is the UN decade for ecosystem restoration and was part of the discussions during UNEA 5.2.

Kabutbei message to leaders convening under the assembly is for them to support communities with more rangers to drive conservation efforts in Kenya.

At his station, shortage of rangers, where a single one is responsible for more than 400 hectares of forest, is making it hard to battle illegal encroachment.

“Let the leaders even employ community scouts to help us fight environment crimes and we shall get back our lost forests,” says Kabutbei.   

Scramble for the HIV dollar pales the fight against the virus in Kenya’s slums

Erick Simba, the director at Christian Best Camps of Kenya (CBCK), a Faith Based Organization at the facility’s urban garden in Kibera slum.

By David Njagi

*Lilian*, a minor living with HIV, is determined to lead her community in Kibera slum in championing the society against biases that lead to loss of dignity and growth opportunities. She is almost getting there.

But stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV is proving to be a persistent obstacle blocking her march towards this call.

“Society is very hostile once they know your HIV status. They will discriminate, abuse and do all sorts of things to you,” she says.

*Lilian* was born and has lived with HIV for 20 years. Her mother, whom she lives with, kept her condition secret from her and the society. However, once friends and relatives discovered her status, they insulted, then isolated her family.

She has worked hard to prove there is life beyond being HIV positive. The effort has paid off. And for a good reason.

Together with a group 14 other youths, they have formed a support group which encourages peers living with HIV to have a positive outlook towards life.

“We also encourage adherence to treatment and support each other with group therapy as a way of fighting society stigma,” she says.

Support groups like * Lilian’s* are the easy way poor communities in Kenya are battling stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV. The harder way is relying on local administrations representing the national and county governments.

Theft of resources meant to support HIV treatment and care has not been well policed by authorities, according to Pastor Erick Simba, the director at Christian Best Camps of Kenya (CBCK), a Faith Based Organization (FBO) sitting on the western edge of Kibera slum.

For instance, elected leaders in Kenya have a social contract to provide services to the people. In *Lilian’s Kibera, this service package includes education bursaries, antiretroviral drugs and HIV counselling, among others. But they do not.

“Right now there are people here who should be on HIV drugs and food to help with the medication but they do not get it. When they ask these leaders why they are not getting the services, they are referred to religious groups working with communities,” says Simba.

Rural Ghana battles freak weather with crop insurance

Adam Fuseina working at her rice farm in Nafaring village in northern Ghana on 10/08/2021.

By David Njagi 

NAFARING, Ghana: As the sun in northern Ghana glided towards noon, Adam Fuseina’s daughter jumped off a pedal bike at their home in Nafaring village and called out to her mother that she was back from shopping.

Fuseina looked at the basketful of food items loaded onto the front rack of the bike and smiled at the agriculture officials who had visited her and said:

“This will keep us going for a week,” said the mother of five, meaning the cooking oil, flour, greens and other kitchen items that she had sent her daughter to buy from the nearest shopping center.

About three years ago, Fuseina’s family could only afford one meal in a day from the stored supplies of the latest harvest. But these lacked in added nutrition like fruits and vegetables.

In 2019, the government, the Ghana Agriculture Insurance Pool (GAIP) and Opportunity International, a UK charity, brought crop insurance into Fuseina’s village, rescuing farmers like her from hunger due to worsening floods and droughts.

“All that is needed for a farmer to receive insurance payouts is proof that they have experienced crop loss due to erratic weather,” said Ibrahim Sulley, a relationship officer in charge of agriculture production with Roots of Change, a local social enterprise.

But the proof must be based on tested data, he said. Working with the government, the crop insurance model in Fuseina’s village obtains data through two processes.

The first is where the government’s ministry of food and agriculture makes an aerial yield survey in areas under food crops to project how much harvests each farmer can get per acre in that region.

Crop insurance officials then visit farmers’ fields when the crop is ripe to take measurements on how much harvest a farmer will get from one acre.

They then compare this data with the government data. The difference between what the government had projected and what is actually at the farm is then used to determine whether there was reduced yield.

“If there was a shortfall in expected yields then the crop insurance program will compensate the difference to the affected farmers,” said Sulley.

Remote weather alerts give Maasai women an edge in bee farming

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By David Njagi

Remote weather sensing has a new role among Kenya’s smallholder farmers: bee farming.

Installed in rural Kenya, the remote weather stations collect information on temperature, humidity and rainfall, which is then used to predict the weather patterns for the months ahead. This information is then shared with bee farmers.

“We look at the rainfall patterns for the last three years and build a trend on what is coming in the next couple of months in terms of rainfall and drought,” says David Kinanta, the manager at Olesut conservancy in southern Kenya.

For a long time, smallholder farmers have been struggling to manage bee farming due to worsening climate change.

Prolonged droughts lead to water scarcity, a necessary ingredient for bees to thrive. They also ignite bushfires that kill bee swarms.

Prolonged rains on the other hand cause production boom in bee farms, hence attracting predators like honey badgers which cannibalize entire bee colonies.

The worsening weather variations also confuse bees because they alter plants’ flowering cycle, a system from which the insects collect pollen to make honey, leading to losses of about 17 kilogrammes of harvests per hive, says Kinanta.

Yet bee farming is a livelihood support for hundreds of farmers struggling with the pressures of climate change like Nolkireu Wuantai.

“Bee farming has given me a voice as a woman from a marginalized community because it has earned me my independence. With this income I am able to continue paying school fees for my children and afford other basic needs like food all year round,” says the 60-year-old mother of eight.

Coming soon: A super cow for African smallholder farmers

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By David Njagi

A super cow that can withstand heat stress as climate change worsens could soon be grazing the African fields.

Scientists have discovered a technology that can pick genes that enable European cows to withstand excess heat and thereafter aim to transfer them into cows native to tropical countries, like those found in Africa.

The result is an improved cow breed that can withstand global warming and heat stress, according to Simon Lillico, a scientist who led the research by the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health (CTLGH) and the Roslin Institute.

At the moment however, the gene edited cows being developed in Edinburgh, UK, are not necessarily destined for Africa, although the scientists say they have developed protocols that could make it easy to transfer the technology to an African set up.

“It is also worth noting that at this point in time we are not anticipating that the animals we are making in Edinburg will be coming to Africa. My personal preference is that if Africa were to decide that this is a technology they would want to adopt, we would transfer those protocols to you,” said Lillico in a phone interview.

Read full story here:

https://www.devex.com/news/are-gene-edited-cows-the-next-big-climate-solution-102263

Farmers shore water harvesting with solar pumps

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By David Njagi 

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, 40% of the world’s population is living in water scarce regions, majority of which are degraded.

In Kenya, which has a supply of less than 1,000 cubic meters per capita of renewable water annually, most of this population is found in arid and semi arid regions.

In these parched regions, the popular trick has been for communities to build sand dams along seasonal river courses to harvest rain water. They then use solar energy to pump water from the sand dams and other inaccessible sources to a safe collection point where everyone can access it.

“I want to use this water to grow fodder on my farm. This will save me from experiencing livestock feed shortages when the rains are inadequate,” says 80-year-old Raphael Mauyu.

Arid Kenya unlocks its food curve with green farms

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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.