Soil health increases crop yields

At the community meeting we demonstrated powerful soil and compost techniques that improve the soil health.

• Minimal soil disruption
• Mulching
• Composting
• Crop rotation

Conservation farm training empowers small rural farmers to diversify crops and increase their yields. As the soil is improved through the use of rotation, mulching, organic fertiliser and composting, they will see year by year that the soil health increases yields.

Traditional methods of farming are common in rural Kenyan communities. The need to increase food production from healthy fertile soil as the population increases and climate changes, requires behaviour changes to implement proven methods of small scale farming.

In November 2019, trustees from the UK visited the Mukinyai Primary School Community to meet with some of the parents of children at the school. Many parents and other community members have been involved in the farm training and were encouraged that their hard work in starting to use conservation agriculture was recognised. In any society, a major change in habits takes time. Feeding Futures provides school meals in the short term whilst giving training opportunities to parents and other members of the community to enable them to live sustainably in the longer term. We call this Sustainability through Partnership.

Each partner has responsibilities and these are demonstrated in the Timeline that has been agreed by the community and is displayed for all to see on the kitchen block at Mukinyai. From January 2020 parents are taking responsibility for the provision of breakfasts. Over a number of years improvement in soil health and increased yields will be seen.