Nutrition through food forests & gardens in Kenya

INTRODUCTION

We hope this report finds you and yours well and safe from the Covid-19 pandemic. We are happy to share with you our quarterly progress report on nutrition through food forest and gardens which is another project of DNRC. Despite the setbacks of covid-19, DNRC continue with her programs; courtesy to your kind and generous donations through GlobalGiving platform. On behalf DNRC staff and the 800 smallholder farmers we serve, we salute you and continue to dream bearing in mind you got our backs. DNRC nutrition through food forest and gardens establishes edible forests among the farmers and organic kitchen gardens where they get nutritious fruits and vegetables for their family and extra for sale. DNRC has demonstration plots of both intervention at the site where farmers learn and replicate in their own farms. DNRC food forest and some of farmers are maturing and most of production trees (fruit trees) are producing. Our main food forest fruit trees include mainly; Pawpaw, oranges, bananas, mangoes, passion, guavas avocados and mull berry which are providing nutritious fruits. The food forests are also providing firewood from the prunnings of the bigger trees. DNRC organic gardens continue to provide vegetables. During this reporting quarter, the following activities were accomplished; managing the food forests at DNRC, harvesting ready fruits, maturing and mulching the production trees. We also continued follows up of the farmers and school food forests. In terms of organic vegetable garden, we concentrated on putting up vegetable nurseries, managing the gardens, harvesting vegetables, issuing farmers with vegetable saplings and selling the extras. Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter

DNRC FOOD FOREST

During this reporting quarter, main activities involved manuring and mulching the fruit trees in the food forest for fast growth, general food forest management (chop and drop), weeding, fruit harvesting. DNRC training and outreach team also continued to train farmers on food forest at DNRC site. The following products were harvested during this reporting quarter from DNRC food forest: 10 kgs of bananas, 100 pieces of passion fruits, and 30kgs of pawpaw. We also harvested about 60kg of cassava.

DNRC KITCHEN GARDENS

During this reporting quarter, DNRC staff in charge of the gardens was busy putting up vegetable nurseries to supply saplings for planting both at DNRC and farmers farms, preparing and fertilizing sunken beds for health vegetables, managing the gardens through weeding, Ecological Pest Management (EPM) and finally harvesting the vegetables for consumption and for sale. Training of farmers on the same also continued during this report period.

CHALLENGES

Water remains our main challenge which limits our expansion potential and we continue to appeal to our donors to support the same.

PLAN FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Continue harvesting vegetables and selling.
• Put up more vegetables nurseries.
• Continue mulching the kitchen gardens to reduce evaporation as water becomes scarce.
• Harvest more fruits from the food forest as well as tending it.
• Propagating more fruit trees in our tree nursery for expanding food forests

Links:

• website

INTRODUCTION

Much Greetings from DNRC family. Despite the hard economic times due to the corona virus pandemic, we still managed to continue our activities at DNRC and thus we can share with you our progress report on nutrition through food forest and gardens. Your continued support has enabled us to get this far and for that we a grateful. DNRC food forest and the school food forests continue to flourish despite minimal rains from the previous rain season. This is because our area benefits from micro climate created by the trees we have been planting since 2007. DNRC food forest is becoming mature every day and most production trees (fruit trees) are producing. They include: Pawpaw’s, oranges, bananas, passion and mull berry. Others like avocados, Mangoes, zyzigium Barchemia discolour take time and soon they will be ready. We continue to get firewood for the kitchen and fodder for the animals as we manage the food forest. (Chop and drop). DNRC gardens are doing great also and apart from feeding DNRC staff daily, we have fed over 60 people in the last three months during our trainings. During the reporting quarter, the following activities were accomplished: managing the food forest, harvesting ready fruits, add manure and mulching the production trees, putting up vegetable nurseries, managing the gardens, harvesting vegetables and selling the extras. Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter

DNRC FOOD FOREST

During the reporting quarter, main activity involved adding manure and mulching the fruit trees in the food forest for fast growth. This went hand in hand with general food forest management (chop and drop) for the branches provided the mulch and the firewood went to the kitchen. Opening up the trees brings in more light. We earthed the sweet potato vines in the food forest for good yield. The following products were harvested during the reporting quarter: 3 kgs of beans, 31 pieces of passion fruits, and 8.25kgs of bananas.

DNRC KITCHEN GARDENS

During this reporting quarter, DNRC staff in charge of the gardens was busy putting up vegetable nurseries for easy access during planting time. Preparing and fertilizing sunken beds for health vegetables. They were also busy managing the gardens through weeding, Ecological Pest Management (EPM) and finally harvesting the vegetables for consumption and for sale.

CHALLENGES

Water is always a challenges since the site doesn’t have a permanent water source and depends on a seasonal river nearby. With minimal rains this season, the river also is affected and the recharge continues to slow down.

PLAN FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• Continue harvesting vegetables and selling.
• Put up more vegetables nurseries.
• Continue mulching the kitchen gardens to reduce evaporation as water becomes scarce.
• Harvest more fruits from the food forest as well as tending it.

INTRODUCTION

Receive much greetings from Drylands Natural Resource Centre (DNRC) family. As we share this quarter report, we trust you’re all well and safe especially during these hard times of Corona. Despite hard times of the pandemic, you have faithfully continued to support our work. We are forever thankful for your continued financial support which has so far contributed to the DNRC success and impacts as we serve humanity. Through this project on food forests and organic gardens, our current 800 farmers are able to benefit from vegetables and fruits coming from both food forests and kitchen gardens thus making them resilient to shocks and hazards like this corona pandemic. Our model of food forests involve farmers planting fruit trees, timber trees, vegetables, fines like sweet potatoes, shrubs like bananas and climbers like passion fruits in a forest-like model. Our vegetable gardens are all organic and diversified to increase nutrition. During this covid, we had to increase the gardens to cater for increased food needs due to restricted movement and market closures. Our farmers are able to get enough vegetables and sell extra for income to buy other food items like flour etc. At DNRC premises, we continued to expand the model of food forest and organic gardens which continue to supply and feed DNRC staff, interns and visitors. This has reduced expenses on meals for the staff and sell of extra for income helps DNRC endeavours towards self-sustainability. During the reporting period, the following activities took place: gapping and expansion of food forests at DNRC, at individual farmers’ farms and increasing organic gardens among DNRC farmers. Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter:

FOOD FOREST

During this reporting quarter, we had November-December rains so major activities included issuing farmers with diverse tree seedlings including fruit trees to expand their food forests. They also continued to weed and manage and harvest fruits from their food forests. At DNRC food forest, we continued to tend, expand, weed and harvest products from the food forest. During the quarter, we got 100kg of sweet potatoes, 30kg of bananas, 5kg of beans, 3kg of passion fruits, 2kg of cassava, 1kg of guavas and 5kg of vegetables.

KITCHEN GARDENS

Due to covid, kitchens gardens demand increased and we had to reach out more extra 200 farmers. We established bigger vegetable nurseries where we propagated more saplings which were issued and planted by our farmers in their individual organic kitchen gardens. Most vegetables planted during this quarter included: kales, spinach, black night shade, onions and amaranth. During this period, our farmers were trained and applied different dryland strategies such as sunken beds, storey gardens, basket gardens, Zia-pits and mulching. Other activities included constant spraying of natural concoctions for pests and disease control, wedding and watering.

CHALLENGES

Water is always our big challenge since we have no permanent source of water within DNRC. We continue to look for funding to secure water source through borehole but not successful yet.

FOCUS FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

• General maintenance of both the food forests and kitchen gardens
• Constant trainings and follow ups with farmer’s kitchen gardens and food forests
• Propagation of both trees and vegetable saplings for both kitchen gardens and food forests

INTRODUCTION

We are delighted to share with you this progress report on our food forest and gardens project. We deeply appreciate your continued financial support to implement this project. Thank you so much. This project is very handy especially during this corona virus time as most people in Kenya lost their employment and livelihoods. Therefore growing their own food is keeping them from starvation and as a source of livelihood. Given this situation, DNRC was able to expand vegetable propagation so that we could cater for more farmers who were given the vegetable seedlings to establish their own kitchen gardens. Due to this extra effort, DNRC and the farmers have managed to grow enough vegetables for the DNRC staff and the households have managed to have enough vegetables for domestic use and sale of extra for income. As a way of coping with effects of Covid, DNRC continued to increase fruit trees propagation for DNRC food forest and farmers. In the food forests, we are promoting mix of fruit trees of early maturing ones and those are late maturing for continuous supply of food and nutrition. Therefore the main activities during this reporting period included: kitchen gardens establishment and management both at DNRC site and at individual farmer’s farms, Fruit tree seedlings propagation and management. Planting food crops in the food forest, weeding and managing the food forest, harvesting both food crops in the food forest as well as the fruits.

Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter.

DNRC FOOD FOREST

During the reporting quarter, we harvested 18.80kgs of beans, 22.4 kgs of bananas, 26.2 kgs of sweet potatoes, 44 pcs of passion fruits, 21pcs guavas and 30kgs of pawpaws. These is how the fruit forests are productive.

DNRC KITCHEN GARDEN

During the reporting quarter, DNRC staff in charge of the kitchen gardens accomplished the following: Establishing vegetable nurseries as well as transplanting them in the gardens. Managing the gardens by weeding, spraying organic concoctions and top dressing. Harvesting for DNRC kitchen use as well as selling extra vegetables for income.

FARMER’S INDIVIDUAL KITCHEN GARDENS

During the reporting quarter, DNRC engaged farmers in organic kitchen gardening. The outreach personnel trained them on how to prepare sunken beds which is the best Drylands technique since water is a challenge. They were issued with vegetable seedlings, planted and now they are harvesting for home consumption and selling extra for income. The kitchen garden project is really helping the households during this hard economic times due to the Covid -19 pandemic.

CHALLENGES

Trainings- due to the health regulation of no gatherings as measure of preventing spread of Covid- 19, we are not able to train farmers in groups but at individual level thus limiting the number of farmers trained.

FOCUS FOR NEXT QUARTER

• Management and expansion of DNRC food forest and the organic kitchen gardens
• Management and expansion of farmers kitchen Gardens and food forests
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Links:

• see our website

INTRODUCTION

Warm greetings from Drylands Natural Resources Centre family. We trust that you and yours are safe and well during this Covid-19 pandemic. We don’t have Covid-19 case in our community yet but within the country the cases continue to rise. Due to this pandemic, we can only meet and train our farmers individually in their farms unlike earlier group trainings. We stopped our regular short courses on permaculture/agro ecology and also volunteers/visitors visits program which supported DNRC financially and her sustainability. This has slowed down our activities substantially though we continue to help our farmers cope with this pandemic through upscale kitchen gardens and food forests for increased food and nutrition security. This has come in handy in that most of the families we serve their family members have been laid off and with some market days banned, social gathering banned and curfew, livelihoods and food security have been seriously affected. Thanks you for your kind support of this project.

During this quarter, we continued to propagate vegetable seedlings to plant at DNRC gardens as well as supply to the farmers to plant in their organic kitchen gardens. Some of the fruit trees propagated and in our food forest range from fodder paw paws, bananas, guavas, passion fruits, tamarind, citrus food among others. The goal is to have both DNRC and the farmers we serve have enough vegetables and fruits from their food forest to increase their nutrition and food security which is key to coping with the pandemic. Major activities done during the reporting quarter included: replanting the food forest, weeding and managing the food forest, harvesting the food crops from the food forest as well as harvesting of fruits. Establishing vegetable nurseries, transplanting the sampling to kitchen gardens as well as managing the kitchen gardens. Also issuing the veg. and tree seedlings to the farmers to plant in their individual farms was carried out during the quarter.

Below are detailed activities during the reporting quarter:

DNRC FOOD FOREST

During the reporting quarter, we harvested 18.80 kgs of beans, 22.4 kgs of bananas, 26.2 kgs of sweet potatoes, 44 pcs of passion fruits, 21pcs guavas and 30kgs of pawpaw which were used to feed DNRC staff and visitors. Other activities involved in weeding, gapping and maintaining the food forest.

KITCHEN GARDENS

During the reporting quarter, DNRC staff were involved in establishing vegetable nurseries, transplanting the veg. saplings into DNRC kitchen gardens, weeding, spraying organic concoctions and top dressing of the crops. .They were also involved in vegetable harvesting of vegetables as well as selling the extra for income. During the reporting quarter, DNRC intensified establishment of organic kitchen gardens by individual farmers as a quick way of coping with Corona pandemic. DNRC outreach personnel individually trained farmers on how to prepare sunken beds (dryland technique) and issued them with vegetable saplings to plant in the sunken beds. Some farmers are already harvesting some vegetables.

CHALLENGES

• Covid-19 has posed a big challenge to our group trainings and have resulted to individual farmer trainings something which has slowed our activities.
• Water still remain our main challenge as we don’t have permanent source and rely on nearby seasonal rivers.

FOCUS FOR NEXT QUARTER

• Manage DNRC food forest as well as continue harvesting fruits and sweet potatoes
• Manage and expand DNRC kitchen gardens
• Continue with individual farmers trainings and follows ups on the household gardens