Kenya: Kibera residents take up challenge of urban farming
In Nairobi’s Kibera neighborhood residents supported by international NGO the Human Needs Project are making possible what seemed out of reach.
By Rédaction Africanews and AP
03/07 2023
Excerpt:
hey have ventured into urban farming.
They had to find solutions to challenegs including a lack of proper sanitation and scarcity of water that make farming a difficult venture in Kibera.
David Omari has adapted a soilless medium. He uses pumice, a volcanic rock.
“So, we are using what we call the waste products, which are things which come from yoghurt, those cups of yoghurt. So, we are using it, we put in the pumice, which comes from the volcanic type of soil or rock from Maimahiu. So this one, you know it has got no impurities, it is clear and makes the work easier because it cannot grow some weeds.”
Fellow farmer Racheal Jumba grows peppers in a greenhouse using hydroponic methods.
“For me, it was a way of us being able to give the community food that is organically produced, that we are using clean resources to be able to do that,” she says.
“We are able to do a lot in a smaller space. So, where for example, what we have right here, we would have done it in perhaps about half an acre, but now, we are doing it in an area that is 8 meters by 15 meters.”
