An organic farming school has been started in the Thika area of Kilimambogo to encourage the growing of crops in ways that do not use artificial chemicals that have been partly blamed on the rising number of cancer cases.
The school, launched last week, was started by Sustainable Agriculture Community Development Program (SACDEP), a non-profit group, with the core aim of recruiting more youth into organic farming.
Organic farming experts led by Ngugi Mutuura who is the founder of SACDEP warned that cancer and other related diseases have in the last years increased due to importation of the many chemicals where the country has been used as a dumping ground for such chemicals some of which are prohibited in their countries of origin.
He said organic farming presents an opportunity for poor farming households to increase food and agricultural production and productivity using cheaper organic inputs originating from within the farms. This he said to comprise of compost, livestock manures, and crop residues.
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“Come to think why earlier in the 1980s and 90s we never heard of many cancer cases like we are having now. It is high time we think of what we consume or else be prepared to meet the cost of treating these diseases,” Mutuura added.
