Country Overview

In Kenya, like in African countries, agricultural plays an important role in the countries economy. It accounts for over 50 per cent of Kenya’s gross domestic product (GDP) and about 80 per cent of the population depends on it. However, agriculture is faced with many challenges. Poverty, hunger, and high unemployment are major concerns in both rural and urban areas. Kenyan agriculture is dying. It is fast losing ground and according to the former minister of agriculture, Hon. Bonaya Godana, it has reached a point of no return. Sixty-five percent of those working on the farms are over sixty (60) years old. It is predicted that this number will exceed 80% by the year 2015.

The country only produces 20% of its food needs and the rest is imported from other nations. This figure is rapidly increasing in a country that was self sufficient in early 1980’s. Only 20% or less of the country’s land is arable, the rest is arid and semi-arid. Rapid increase in population has exerted pressure on available resources, resulting to poor living standards. Kenyan families are increasingly at the risk of poverty, malnutrition and famine. Many folks have moved to cities in search of employment, shelter, food, reasonable recreation facilities, good education and medical services.

Increasing costs of agricultural inputs such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are beyond the purchasing power of most small-scale farmers, who are the main producers contributing up to 70% of the country’s food. Previously crop yield were propped up by chemical fertilizers, which were heavily subsidized by the government and widely used by Kenyan farmers. With the introduction of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs), however the cost of agricultural inputs skyrocked: a 50Kg bag of Diammonium phosphate is costing Kshs.1, 800 this planting season (2004). Unskilled labor in most areas earns a wage of Kshs. 50 per day. This takes one more than a month to earn money to buy a single bag of fertilizer. Most farms do not yield without the application of fertilizer. The negative effects of these external agricultural chemicals are contributing to environmental degradation. These synthetic chemicals are destroying the vital living organisms that help build good and health soil. This is leading to poor yields resulting to significant hunger and malnutrition. Other problems include runaway inflation, diminishing farm sizes, poor crop husbandry and processing skills, inadequate rainfall and land degradation.

Complicating the situation is a recurrent “good season, bad prices” phenomenon, meaning that immediately following a peak harvest prices are extremely low. Some farmers are forced to sell their produce (surpluses) at little or no profit in order to meet other household demands for cash.

After removing the corporal punishment in schools, most teachers resorted to punishing pupils in school by sending the indiscipline children in the garden to work and as a result many view farming as a punishment.

Seeing the meager income generated and poor yields on most farms due to above-mentioned problems, farmers have worked hard to get their children off the land so that they can support them by doing other jobs such teaching. They (farmers and their children) have lived poor lives on the farm. As a result young people have no interest in farming and continue to flock to the cities. The traditional village songs and dances have all but disappeared; the soul of farming is dying. Kenyan agriculture/rural life is seen by most as the heart of Kenya culture.

Two common African sayings that illustrate the importance of farming in the continuity of African (or any) societies are “The future of tomorrow‘s forests is in today’s seed “and” It is the saplings in a forest that make it thick”.

How do today’s youths in your community view farming? If your community is like the ones here, you will identify with some of these statements:

»	“When I grow up I do not want to dig again! I want to wear nice clothes and shoes all the time. I will live in town in a nice house.”
»	“I want to be a pilot, to be able to fly away from the life of digging.”
»	“I want to be a rich farmer. To use tractors and prisoners like our neighbor, then my children will never suffer digging like we do?”

Where is the future of sustainable agriculture if the youths abhor farming? A “life of digging”, as it has been termed, is for the less elite, poorly resourced and rural. Where does this paradigm come from?

It stems from our current attitudes, which are passed on to successive generations. Typically, the more educated people are, the further away they are from the soil and more “respectable” they become.

The traditional education curriculum does not train children to become self-sustaining small farmers. The more “educated” become advisers to those who live off the land. They do not sweat with the hoe and usually don’t know how to grow the food they live on. Yet, the ‘educated” earn more and live better than the farmers.

In Kenya, parents’ often say,” If you play with education, you’ll end up in farm!” We are all guilty of biasing our children against farming. Often we hear that farming is not a career to be proud of, but one resorted to it if everything failed.

On the global scale, about one hundred and thirty (130) million children are out of school and estimated one hundred and sixty (160) million children are undernourished.

The close relationship between poverty and lack of food, absence of education have long been recognized and understood, development strategies at international and national level have tended to treat equitable access to quality education and food as separate issues.

Experience has shown that food security and education are interlinked and can contribute to the process of enabling rural people to improve their lives and livelihoods. Basic education is now seen as a crucial aspect of rural development, food security and wealth creation.

Issues to be Considered in Agriculture Reform

Various economic policy documents suggest that revival of agriculture could contribute to better socio economic welfare. To achieve this, agriculture must contribute to economic development through the production of food at reasonable prices, foreign exchange earnings, and strong linkages.

Major concerns in revitalizing the agricultural sector relate to productivity, intensification and diversification of agriculture, resource endowments, policy failures, transaction costs and institutional failures.

To address these constraints will require a) improvement in the technology and efficiency of farming; b) structural changes in response to changes in market conditions, and C) agricultural sector should be served by private and public agencies that respond to new challenges in innovative ways.

Other necessary change should include: i) reforming the legal and regulatory framework governing agricultural operations; ii) promoting research and technology development; iii) reforming extension services to create and a more effective linkage between research; iv) establishing and development agricultural credit and market systems; and v) promoting domestic agro-processing.

For the proposed changes to succeed, a number of confounding factors must be recognized. First, all –year distribution of food is a major policy concern partly because Kenya is largely a water-deficit country. Second, while the demand on urban housing will continue, the rural/urban interface needs to be understood better and innovative solutions sought to cope with the rural-urban migration. Third, with liberation, farmers, co-operatives and traders must now deal with various marketing problems. Agricultural marketing intermediaries must adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in relatively short time. Fourth, agricultural marketing systems must deliver products at prices that consumers can afford and producer can break even economically. The need for greater diversification and competition in the food supply cannot be overemphasized. A related policy dimension suggests that transparent, legal and institutional arrangements are required to promote efficient and equitable utilization of increasingly scarce water resources. Fifth, farmers face numerous direct and indirect taxes, which make agricultural less competitive both locally and internationally. Sixth, liberalization of agricultural marketing, globalization and various trade agreements have opened up new opportunities to the farming and business community. However, these processes have also exposed farmers and agribusiness to greater international competition. The Government has the upper hand to intervene in cases of subsidized foreign competition.

There are major issues that must be addressed concomitantly for these changes to bear fruits quickly. First, HIV/AIDS and other diseases are imposing heavy economic and social costs on agriculture and the society in general. Greater emphasis is required to improve health services by both public and private sector. Second, rural areas are experiencing high levels of crimes including livestock thefts and violent robberies. High and improved farm productivity and successful economic recovery will be difficult to achieve without improved security. Third, inappropriate agricultural often cause land degradation, deforestation, and environmental damage. Sustainable utilization and conservation practices of natural resources should be encouraged at all times. Fourth, greater budgetary support is required to promote the desired revival of agricultural sector. More research is also needed to support agriculture recovery.

New Direction

As a result Common Ground Program (CGP), a local Non Governmental Community- based Organization started a Garden School Project - (Pathfinder Academy) in January 2002 with the vision of making Kenya a much better place through enlightenment of children its future leaders.

The school provides opportunities to two hundred (200) pupils (ages 3 - 12 years) to excel academically and socially; self-esteem and confidence are essentials ingredients in encouraging children to be become motivated and active learners. The school is a community in which, children, parents and staff work together to provide happy and learning environment.

Pathfinder Academy moulds its pupils to be responsible citizens of tomorrow. Our school motto is “Use Common Sense”. The school aims at turning out children who will help build Kenya into enviable nation.

A part from the national education system (subjects taught include: Maths, English, Kiswahili, Science, Christian Religious Education (CRE) and Social Studies) our school offers pupils and parents courses on the Joy of Spontaneous Delight, Joy of Teaching Responsibility and the Joy of the Earth. Through the Joy of the Earth curriculum pupils are introduced to GROW BIOINTENSIVE (organic) farming.

The goal of education at Pathfinder Academy is not the mastery of various disciplines, but the mastery of one’s self. Being responsible to one’s self cannot be separated from being responsible to the planet.

There is no other best way is to get this lesson across than the school curriculum in which food is takes its place at the core level. From the garden, kitchen and the table, children learn empathy-for each and for all of creation. The children learn compassion, patience and self–discipline. Our school curriculum teaches these lessons to give children an orientation to the future- and it gives them hope. In the garden children learn Maths by counting seeds, spacing, weighing of produce etc; Science by germination, watering, soil aggregates/structure; CRE by observing creation and Social studies by looking the gardens’ physical features.

Gardening, cooking, serving and eating, composting…. are truly basic things. Here the garden turns a pop culture upside- down; it teaches redemption through a deep appreciation for the real, the authentic and lasting—for the things that money can’t buy; the very things that matter most of all if we are going to lead a sane, healthy and sustainable lives. CGP believes that the children who learn environmental and nutritional lessons through school gardening and school cooking and eating-learn ethics.

The school is facilitating the integration of agriculture, agroforestry and natural resources management and environmental and wildlife conservation, while bringing direct benefits to all learners in the families and communities. Providing children with a wide array of knowledge and skills related to land, soil and water management, as well as a more positive attitude towards sustainable rural life, will prepare them for new challenges in farming and other environments.

CGP initiative through the Pathfinder Academy is striving to improve the preparedness of youths in natural resource management and life skills by:

»	Promoting the integration of sustainable natural resource management into basic education imparting agricultural and natural resource management knowledge, skills and attitudes.
»	Strengthening linkage between school, homes and communities, particularly in rural areas.
»	Enhancing effectiveness of formal and non-formal education through active experiential and contexualized learning.

The CGP initiative provides a unique opportunity and platform for children to learn new agricultural skills, which then are shared with their parents. As a result, hundreds of families have accessed additional farming and seed information.

The school has 9,700 square foot garden adjacent to the classroom complex. Crops grown include Sunflower, Kale, Maize, Wheat, Pearl millet, Indigenous vegetables, Collards, Sorghum, Sweet potatoes, Vetiver grass, groundnuts, Mbambara nuts and fruits. Children participate in all stage of garden planning and implementation. Our song of the day is “dirt under the nails”.

The training children get at school enables CGP to reach out to rural communities by using them (children) as media on how to raise their own food using locally available resource such compost and open pollinated seeds. Children also go out to prepare gardens for the HIV/AIDS infected and affected families. Availability of food for these families thus lifts a dreadfully heavy burden from their shoulders. They no longer worry about hunger, as a simple meal each day would sustain them. Children from those families who dropped out are returned, and those that never attended school are sent to school by parents.

Training on how to raise food both at school and community dispel hunger and malnutrition yet at the same time double school attendance hence promoting academic performance. It also compensates poor parents for the loss of their children’s labor as they attend classes. Above all, growing food locally frees individuals to develop their innate potential and build self – reliance. It gives children a hope and a chance to think about something other than where their next meal would come from. Through School-Community Linkage GROW BIOINTENSIVE Project, CGP helps lift people out of poverty and gives them a start in life.

The CGP plans to expose children to different agricultural processes ranging from production, processing and marketing within and outside the country to have a better idea about agriculture and how to make it attractive and profitable.

School children practicing at home what they learn at school have already started earning income, which is used to pay for their own school fees. Despite the fact the there’s free primary school in Kenya, many parents from poor families prefer to send their children to CGP’s Pathfinder Academy because of this type of project.

The Way Forward

Let us involve children our daily farming activities, stop punishing children at school by giving them gardening work.

The strategy for revitalizing agriculture should aim to provide policy and institutional changes that will create a vibrant, productive, competitive agriculture sector.

Asante.

By Joshua Amwai Machinga
Coordinator, Common Ground Program