Category: Regenerative agriculture

Because smallholder farmers, like Evelyn Syombua, produce one third of the world’s food they are also the key components in the global transition towards a more sustainable, regenerative way of farming that will boost yields and income.

For women like Evelyn, regenerative agriculture means a future on land she had been on the point of abandoning.

Equipping women farmers with the skills to thrive

Hand in Hand equips women with regenerative agriculture techniques to restore soils damaged by years of monoculture farming, increase their yields and the business skills to scale up their agri-business so they can reach larger and more profitable value chains.

Diversification

Today, Evelyn rotates a variety of crops including sorghum, cow peas, pigeon peas, green grams – even leaving some areas fallow to allow the soil to recover. She’s planted fruit trees that yield fruit and enhance the local biodiversity, prevent soil erosion and provide shade for the animals.

She’s also learned to collect the rain when it comes and then use it for irrigation during dry periods.

Farming with intent

Moreover, everything on the farm has a purpose. Low growing crops such as sweet potato, reduce water loss. The fodder feeds the 15 goats and 10 chickens, the animal waste provides the basis for the fertiliser. Fruit trees provide food for the family and shade for the animals. Even old milk cartons provide the perfect ‘home’ in which to germinate seedlings.

As a result, Evelyn has noticed a real increase in the harvest from two bags of beans to at least four. It means there’s more food on the table and even some to sell at the market – earning more from the beans alone from KES 2,500 (US $16) to KES 4,500 (US $30) each harvest.

“The revival of the farm business has also given me hope and a direction on choices to make,” says Evelyn.

With sub–Saharan Africa seeing record droughts and floods and with as much as 30% of the country’s land degraded by intensive monoculture farming and pesticide use, many smallholder farmers and their families are trapped in a cycle of poverty.

We’ve developed a training programme that has already equipped 16,000 subsistence farmers with the latest regenerative agricultural techniques so they can better withstand the twin impact of unpredictable rains and degraded soil.

A new way of farming

For Benedetta Kaveki this meant changing the way she and her neighbours had farmed for generations.

She began by constructing terraces to reduce the soil erosion during the rains, planting the water hungry maize at the bottom and beans at the top.

Instead of relying on just these two crops Benedetta broke with tradition to plant sorghum, cow peas, pigeon peas and green grams, which would better withstand periods of drought, and low growing crops such as sweet potato to reduce surface water loss.

The resulting year-round harvest now provides Benedetta with more opportunities to sell her produce while also helping to trap carbon, enriching the soil and improving plant, animal and insect biodiversity.

Everything on the farm has a purpose

Everything on Benedetta’s farm now has a purpose – new paw paw trees provide shade for the animals, excess crops are used to feed the animals which, in turn, provide the manure for the crops. She even makes her own pesticide using tobacco leaves, pepper and garlic.

Benedetta’s farm is transformed. The improved soil has led to increased yields, and, by using circular economy techniques like making fertilizer from parts of the crop that can’t be used, she’s reduced her dependence on costly commercial products.