Kenya: ‘Enough to feed a family of four’: Kenyans embrace urban farming as food worries rise
“There’s increasingly a disconnect between people, the food that they eat and how that food is grown,” Atamba says.
Caroline Kimeu in Nairobi
The Guardian
17 Oct 2022
Excerpt:
Simiyu is one of a rising number of Kenyans growing their own food in the city. Elzie Chebet, who runs Organic Kitchen Gardens Kenya, says urban farming saw a dramatic increase after food supply chains were disrupted during the Covid pandemic. With limited space, some city-dwellers began growing produce in their kitchens and on balconies.
As food shortages and price hikes pushed some Kenyans back to their rural homes, where food is cheaper and scraps of land are available for most households to grow their own, Simiyu ramped up her efforts in Nairobi, securing a year-round supply of vegetables and meat. She now trains farmers and runs a gardening channel on YouTube.
Emmanuel Atamba, a food systems expert with the Route-to-Food Initiative, says: “People realised that food production was an important activity – at the household and policy level.”
In 2020, the government distributed seeds and farming kits as part of their “one million kitchen gardens” project to increase household food security, although it is not clear how many households were reached.
Agriculture is the backbone of Kenya’s economy and contributes 30% to GDP. More than half of the country’s population rely on it for their livelihoods, but that number has steadily decreased over the past decade, as more people move into the service and manufacturing industries.
