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Wanambisi Wesakania is in the 5th year of a Master's Degree in Natural Resource Conservation and Management at Western Washington University. With his small group of young conservationists, his organization ECO Garden (Environmental Conservation and Organic Farming) has trained over 500 farmers to grow organically, and to prevent soil erosion with reforestation and terracing. He has come to the U.S. to gather more information to bring back to Kenya. This is his story as told to Saphir Lewis on Dec. 16, 2005:
"ECO Garden is a community-based organization in the Trans-Nzoia District of Kenya. We are dedicated to promoting environmental conservation and organic farming in the local communities within Kenya. Currently our work is regional but we are hoping to grow national and into neighboring countries.
The Trans-Nzoia District, which is on the borders of Uganda and Rwanda, is an agricultural area. The main crop is maize (corn), which we grow for food for the people. There are other commercial crops, but maize is the main one.
When Kenya gained independence from the British in 1963, land was given back to African farmers. This was done through settlement schemes, society shareholders, and individual landholders. With settlement schemes, each farmer received either 19 acres or 32. For society shareholders, the size of the farm depended on how much money the farmer had paid in. Large-scale individual farmers received over 1000 acres.
Before the British left, these farms were well managed through terracing, crop rotation, and intact indigenous forest on part of each farm. When the redistribution happened, the African farmers thought that all those terraces were wasteful, that they were just occupying land. They cut down the trees to make open flat farming land for easy mechanization. They took out the terraces. Many of the farmers, when they got their land, cut the forest and didn’t plan well, they took everything down. When they started noticing soil erosion it was too late. They began missing rain because there was no longer moisture in the air.
In 1993 I decided to go in for training, so I could be better equipped. We didn’t have any funding and by then I also had a wife, two kids and a single cow that we were milking to feed our family. I sold my own cow, which paid for one quarter of a two year program on organic farming at Manor House Agricultural Center. I left my wife alone to care for our family. When I went to Manor House, I only had money to pay for one quarter, but I was lucky enough to get a sponsor to pay for the rest of the program. Then in 1995 I came back home, now with a spirit of working with farmers promoting organic farming.
Starting out, we used word of mouth and the visibility of our demonstration garden to reach the farmers. We had a garden along the way where everyone who was passing could see our garden, how it was set up and how the crops were doing. It attracted people asking “what is this, why is it growing this way?" They kept on asking questions. Anybody who came in to ask us questions gave us an opportunity to talk and note the number of people who asked that question. We promised them that we would get back to them as we had time. Whenever we had 10 people ask the same question we would put them in a group and then invited them to a free single day training.
"Those young fellows are doing a very good job, they trained us for free and now we have started practicing". Neighbors learned from those who were trained and soon we had more people coming in wanting to know about what we were doing.
After working for five years, I realized that one component of the training was missing: environmental conservation. In that five years we made progress, we trained farmers on how to increase production through organic farming. But we realized that though we were working on organic farming, we also needed knowledge to train farmers to integrate environmental conservation practices. Farmers need firewood for energy, they need timber for construction. To do that we had to increase awareness of forestry farming, providing what they need from trees and at the same time, the trees helping other species, and holding back soil erosion. At that point, I decided to come to the states for further study.
We continued to teach. I have been in the US for five years going to school. I have had to raise my tuition. From here and there I have managed to get financial support for the five years. And within that process I have had an opportunity to work on campus. Working on campus I have been able to finance four young members of our group to also acquire the 2-year training in organic farming. The cost of training one is around $700 for the 2 year program at Manor House (in Kenya). I have been able to do that while working while I am in school. I could send very little quarter by quarter, and but it was enough to push them along until finally the last two graduated this November (2005).
The whole concept is for people to know that it is very, very vital for them to manage their natural resources, from forestry, clean water, and soil. This is how we are progressing, we are still looking for funding possibilities to help us get equipment that will make it easier for us to teach, power point presentations and other tools.
While I am here, the other young fellows are in Kenya keeping the ECO Garden going. There are four others, the same ones from the original youth group. They all have families and I have my family. We feed our families from our gardens. Originally I used my own land to teach but now ECO Garden has 7.25 acres of land for doing the training’s.
I will be completing my schooling in March of 2006, but I am planning to stay here to work and raise money for one year, for my family and the school. According to our regional plan $40,000 would make ECO Garden sustainable for ten years. ECO Garden is happy to welcome anybody who wants to be part of it, in terms of financial support, in terms of technical support, just helping us to grow. It is geared to young fellows to understanding their role in managing natural resources, at the same time also gaining by learning other skills that they don't get access to. ECO Garden is planning to use computer programs to attract more youth. We want to offer computer knowledge that is very scarce. Meanwhile, the youth will help to work on saving the environment by raising tree seedlings, planting trees, building terraces, participating in environmental cleanup, especially in polluted areas, collecting garbage in public places (like markets).
Right now I am in the process of working with an Oregon State University program that sends students from Universities here in the U.S. to foreign countries for internship, through the International Organization for Internships. We will be hosting American students from 16 different Universities at ECO Garden next summer.
Some successes we have had: · Trained over 500 small scale farmers in organic farming, · Laid terraces in 100 farms of 5 acres each to control soil erosion in Kesogon village, · Completed 3 clean water spring-fed well protection projects serving 650 families, · Raised and supplied over 70,000 indigenous tree seedlings to farmers, · Started environmental conservation education in nearby schools, · Organized and led community members in cleaning up plastic bags and containers at Kesogon market, · Established a demonstration and training center used to train farmers.
Our target groups are individual farmers, organized women's groups, high schools and elementary schools' Young Farmer's Club.
Our budget for this coming year is roughly $20,000 to put in a solar water pump and solar power, and to expand the office facilities. So far, we have one organization that has promised $1000, and another that has promised $2000, so we're still in the process of looking for more.
The reason I am planning to stay behind is to work and raise money, hoping that if I stay here, I can make $10,000. I don't know. I will need a place to live and to eat. That is what I am planning to do. But if I got the money we need, I won't stay, I'll go back to work at ECO Garden.
There is a way we can make money at ECO Garden. Trans-Nzoia is an agricultural area, and most people do their plowing using tractors. If ECO Garden had a tractor to work the 7 acres of land, to haul manure and to transport things, while farmers are preparing their farms, the tractor could go and plow their farms and we'd make money from that. They will have money to rent our tractor because they want to produce food. And that money will be turned around to train them. (If we can get a tractor, we can get it to Kenya). We have very large corporate farms in Kenya. These are huge corporations, who don't own their own tractors, because they do not want the expense of maintenance, they rent instead.
Our target groups are farmers with 1-10 acres. These are small scale farmers. Those are the ones that have the problems. The majority of the people live on small individual plots. Those are the people we want to educate to produce food without any high costs. It only takes 40 people to donate $1000 to have the money to keep ECO Garden going. If we had a tractor we could raise the money ourselves."
If you know of a source for computers or a tractor, or you'd like to contact Wanambisi - please email wanambisi@yahoo.com - or email us here at WPE.
ECO-Garden is sponsored by the A.W.I.S.H. Foundation, you can make direct donations at their website www.awish.net/Africa/ecogarden.htm
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