Smallholders shift to lucrative agroforestry

David Kiruku with piglets at his home in Kamondo area of Githunguri Sub County and Kiambu County. [Nanjinia Wamuswa/Standard]

After heaping her day’s harvest of fruits and vegetables in one of the corners of her farm, Joyce Wangare cuts fodder trees that form her farm’s lengthy fence.

She uses the fodder, known as Calliandra Calothyrsus, as feed for livestock. “This can be fed to livestock straight from the farm, or prepared and preserved for later use,” she says holding the fodder.

Her half acre farm located in Waratho Gatina area in Kiambu County is a forest garden with various crops such as maize, lucerne, bananas, potatoes, sukuma wiki, tomatoes, avocados, onions and passion fruits.

Unsustainable harvest

Despite having only half an acre piece of land, Wangare says her farm produces enough food throughout the year for home use and for sale. Prior to trying out agroforestry, she planted only maize, beans and potatoes in her farm.

During that time, harvest from her farm was very little. “I had five cows and and not enough to feed them. I was forced to sell four of them and remain with one,” she says of the period before 2016 when she ventured into agroforestry. This was after she went through training on the same by a team from Trees for the Future.

Agroforestry training

Today, she has enough food for the family and some that she sells for income. “I am also back on dairy farming. I bought one dairy cow. Now my two cows give me at least 20 litres of milk a day. We only use three litres and the rest is sold for income,” she explains.

The Trees for the Future team taught locals how to plant, harvest, prepare and preserve feeds from lucerne, the plant which produces high quality green feed. Wangare is among the 500 farmers who benefited from a three-year garden farming project introduced in Kiambu by the team.

Lose of soil fertility

Ms Alice Mwaura from Kamondo says she too planted maize and beans for many years. As a result, her land had not only lost fertility but also became acidic.

“Every time l planted, l got very little in return. But l had no option but to continue farming in the same land since it is the only one the family owns,” she says while harvesting tomatoes in her forest garden. She too has tens of crops in her one-acre land and also keeps dairy cows and goats. 

The 52-year-old mother of six estimates that she makes an average Sh40,000 in a month from sale of surplus foodstuffs.

Stephen Muhindi, a technician at Trees for the Future says most of the lands in the area were degraded because farmers practiced monoculture, concentrating mainly on cereal farming. “We trained them on holistic forest garden approach in which they incorporate vegetables, fodder, root crops and climbing trees,” he explains.

Further, the farmers relied on commercial fertilizers that impacted negatively on land, causing acidity. But the training has seen them shift to compost manures that use green materials, thus improving soil fertility and increasing harvests. “Learning how to make compost manure from crop remains and animals wastes was a great milestone. Now, l no longer use commercial fertilizers that are costly and interfere with soil pH,” explains Alice.

“Due to increased production, we have trained farmers on making seasonal calendars depending on local markets. This has helped them plan and plant particular crops that coincide with high demand on the market giving them better returns from their harvests.”

How to plant trees

Wangare says they also learned how to propagate tree nurseries and care for them so that they have seedlings to plant every other season. 

She says fodder trees such as Calliandra Calothyrsus are planted as fence and provide feeds for livestock. “We cut them when they mature so that they do not form canopies and interfere with other crops,” she says. For timber trees, farmers prune the branches and use them for firewood.

At 87, Mr David Kiruku jumped onto the agroforestry train the moment it was introduced in the area. Kiruku, who owns five acres of land reveals that for many years, he relied on coffee, maize and dairy farming. “I now have almost all vegetables, pawpaws, maize, macadamia trees and keep pigs,” he said

Maximizing land use

Mr Peter Maina, East African trainer at Trees for the Future, says they train farmers to harness the available space in their land. After the training, farmers are given farm equipment. “Farmers who have undergone this training and are already into forest garden have improved production. We are also linking those who produce more to markets since selling of the produce has been a challenge,” he explained.

He says all the trees found in the forest garden are multi-beneficial and friendly to soil and crops.  

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