Counties urged to adopt eco-friendly farming to fight climate change

Tuliangura Lomurwas weeds crops at Wei Wei irrigation scheme in West Pokot County. [File, Standard] Agricultural experts have challenged county governments to adopt an agro-ecology policy to address the hostile climate reality in the country. The National Agroecology Strategy for Food System Transformation 2024-2033 entails sustainable farming approaches that are friendly to nature, plants, humans, the environment, and animals. Mary Irungu, a policy advocacy expert at Preparatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), said counties are supposed to domesticate National Agroecology strategies that can be in the form of a policy or a plan, depending on the context and needs of each county. Murang'a County was the first and devolved unit to adopt the Agroecology policy and formulate a bill that is in the implementation stage. Other counties that have already formulated the policy are Vihiga and West Pokot counties, with Bungoma, Trans- Nzoia, Laikipia, and Kakamega busy developing the policies according to Ms Irungu. Farmers have been grappling with the effects of climate change, such as declining soil fertility and food insecurity, with experts insisting that counties could deal with the challenges by embracing agroecology. Ms Irungu noted that the new policy provides a structured path to promote sustainable, locally driven solutions. "The country is facing many challenges in terms of climate changes, which is affecting agriculture and also contributing to greenhouse gases. Agroecology would help enhance the resilience of the food system and the sector as a whole. This approach can minimise greenhouse gas emissions in the sector," Irungu noted. She further attributed the rise of non-communicable diseases to the consumption of crops highly sprayed with synthetic chemicals and those highly processed. "We need to change our way of growing and processing food and ensuring that we provide safe food on the table through agroecological practices where we minimise the chemicals used in producing food," she noted. She noted that the soils are dead after long use of synthetic chemicals, one of the challenges facing the efforts to transition from conventional to the Agroecology way of farming. To reverse the situation, Irungu encouraged the use of an Agroecological approach where organic matter is increased in the soil to revive soil fertility. "We can use compost manure or any form of organic matter to revive the soils that we have already destroyed. We also need to revive the biodiversity in the form of seed selection and seed banking," she said. Florence Migasha, a farmer who cultivates African leafy vegetables in Bungoma County, said farmers require a policy that would cushion them from the effects of climate change. "Sustainable farming practices are essential to preserving both biodiversity and soil fertility, thus the need to have a policy. If we do not take care of the soil, we won't be able to grow the vegetables that have sustained us and enable us to earn a living," Migasha noted. Lilian Aluso, an Agroecology expert, reported that the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT (International Center for Tropical Agriculture) is implementing an Agroecological transition in Vihiga County, citing the nutrition community seed bank as among the initiatives being implemented under the project. Established in 2021, the seed bank project is managed by the community-based organisation comprising 300 farmers drawn from the whole county. She said the bank was started as a way of conserving the local biodiversity, starting with African leafy vegetables. Aluso highlighted that the aim of starting the seed bank was after realising that there was a problem of accessing indigenous varieties of seeds that were extinct and lost. She noted that Vihiga farmers work closely with the National Gene Bank, where they obtained some of the extinct seeds and started doing multiplication.

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