LAIKIPIA, Kenya—In Kenya’s central region, the Central Highlands Ecoregion Foodscape (CHEF) program is making a significant impact.
The program sustains biodiversity, boosts water resources, and increases soil health by encouraging regenerative farming techniques.
This helps fight against climate change and land degradation and increases agricultural yield.
For example, John Maina Kogi, who engages in the CHEF program, is an avocado farmer in Mutethia, Buuri constituency in Meru County.
When Y News recently visited, he was busy grafting a short branch, known as a scion, from a mature Hass avocado tree growing on his property onto the rootstalk of an Indigenous variety.
This gives a farmer the commercial advantages of selling the more well-liked Hass avocado fruit and all the agricultural benefits of planting an indigenous avocado tree, such as increased resistance to pests and drought.
How the CHEF program is uniting partners in Central Kenya
However, John does not intend to use these grafted seedlings to boost his farm’s collection of over thirty avocado trees. After growing them for three months, he wanted to sell them to nearby farmers for 150 Kenyan shillings each.
John is one of five farmers chosen to receive assistance in seed entrepreneurship and a member of the Laikipia Avocado Outgrower’s Community-Based Organisation.
John’s farm is an excellent illustration of how a new The Nature Conservancy (TNC) initiative called CHEF is uniting partners to coordinate regional agricultural efforts to address threats from climate change, extractive agriculture, and land degradation.
He received training and start-up supplies from Micro Enterprises Support Programme Trust (MESPT) and KEITT Exporters, and he was also able to sell his crops back to KEITT for export.
“MESPT has empowered us. You see, we started as five farmers with 2,000 seedlings each. I started grafting 850 seedlings that I will sell after two months after approval by KEPHIS,” said Kogi.
What is the TNC-led CHEF program
CHEF is an ambitious initiative involving a wide range of partners that aims to transform the area into a regenerative foodscape where food production methods may genuinely contribute to preserving biodiversity and the health of soil and water supplies.
The Central Highlands of Kenya are home to various interdependent and interrelated habitats. Mount Kenya, the second-highest mountain in Africa, supplies water to the rangelands, where cattle and wildlife forage for grass after passing through agriculture and highland forests.
“CHEF is important to TNC and many partners,” says TNC’s Africa Agricultural Director Michael Misiko. “It aligns so many partners to solve a critical problem— the problem of fragmentation.”
As the name implies, Mountain Foot Farm is located at the foot of Mount Kenya.
The snow-capped summit of Mount Kenya silently overlooks the land.
Potatoes, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and other crops are grown on the farm, which Samson Kithinji and his son Dennis Kithinji jointly operate.
“The earnings depend on the market. If you provide all that is needed to grow a crop like snap peas, a single kilogram can produce 200 to 300 at the end of the day,”
How KEITT Exporters Limited supports Central Kenya farmers
This 20-acre piece of land receives regular visits from Lucas Ouma Odongo of KEITT Exporters, who offers vital technical assistance, including guidance on rotational planting, fertiliser recommendations, and crop selection.
KEITT ships the farm’s pea harvest to Nairobi twice weekly, packed and sent to Dubai and Europe.
Mountain Foot Farm now has a steady buyer throughout the year, unlike when they worked with an exporter who only purchased from them during certain months.
When we visited her farm, Hellen Wairimu, a smallholder farmer from Tulaga in Nyandarua county, was carefully twisting open green sugar snaps in the freezing weather.
Like her other 40 colleagues under the Aberdare Uphill Cooperative, Wairimu exports her produce after receiving training on value addition.
The training was facilitated by a development organisation established in 2002 by the Kenyan government and the European Union (EU) and later by the Royal Danish Embassy in Kenya.
Wairimu, a resident of Njambini on the slopes of Nyandarua Hills, said that Keitt buys a kilogramme of her sugar snaps for Sh100. In contrast, intermediaries would buy the same for Sh30.
“MESPT has trained us, among other things, on food safety, and we continue to benefit greatly from their support. We are now earning good returns,” Wairimu told Y News.
Why the CHEF program is keen to boost livestock farming
Meanwhile, the Matanya Hay Growers Cooperative and CHEF are collaborating on a hay storage initiative further downstream.
Farmers are encouraged to produce grass here because, for a small price, it may be stored in a brand-new hay shed after it has dried.
Pastoralists can then buy nutrient-rich hay for their cattle during dry spells, which gives the cattle a lifeline and the farmers a source of cash.
The Englemann prickly pear (Opuntia engelmannii), an invasive cactus, has taken over grazing pastures and decreased the amount of accessible feed in some rangeland populations.
This is in addition to the erratic rainfall. With CABI’s help, the CHEF program has taught more than 200 community members how to manage the cactus’s spread responsibly, including introducing a cochineal, a sap-sucking bug donated by a neighbour and TNC partner.
TNC is also teaching a few neighbourhood members how to utilise drones to monitor the work.
Water management across the system is another issue that CHEF is addressing. To improve water governance and encourage fair access to water, the Centre for Training and Integrated Research in ASAL Development (CETRAD) is installing water meters for farmers and other water users.
Misiko further told Y News that TNC is grateful to its partners, such as MESPT and Keitt Exporters Limited.
The CHEF initiative continues to foster community and togetherness in the face of severe challenges in this genuinely integrated landscape.
