Development of Pulse Value Chain through Regenerative Agriculture

Goal/Title – Improving food security, community and ecosystems resilience through adoption of Regenerative Agriculture.

Working with:

Implementation Period

16 Months (July 2020 to October 2021)

Geographic Coverage

Currently, the project is being implemented in the county

Target value chains: Pulses (Green grams, Pigeon Peas and Cowpeas) and Cereals (Sorghum and Maize)

The Problem

Makueni County with a population of 987,653 (2019 National Census), is predominantly a semi-arid agro-ecological zone and faces chronic water shortages arising from erratic rainfall seasons and perennial droughts. Smallholder farmers face several challenges including; adverse effects of climate change, land degradation, declining soil fertility, limited access to extension services and weak input and output market linkages. The effects of climate change at the smallholder level has resulted to fragile semi-arid agro-ecological zones.

It is important that smallholder farmers are empowered to change their practices and adopt new agricultural technologies that not only safeguard the natural ecosystems but also their household incomes and economies. As such, a key part of smallholder agricultural transformation calls for the adoption of agro-ecological farming technologies and practices that enable smallholder farmers to adapt to climate change and variability; and preserve their natural capital. The adoption of regenerative agriculture (RA) practices from a value chain approach is key to helping smallholder farmers to tackle climate variability and risk at all stages of the value chain, from production, business organisation and market access, to financial services.

The use of a Village Based Advisor (VBA) model helps to leverage the efforts of the county extension system and will increase the number of smallholder farmers accessing and adopting new and improved agricultural practices and technologies. The recruited VBAs will be connected to other value chain actors (private sector) and service providers to address various challenges facing smallholder farmers in the County.

What we are doing

Through the training of 100 VBAs each with 100 farmers, the regenerative agriculture project will enhance the resilience of 10,000 farmers in Makueni County through the regenerative agricultural practices that will lead to healthy soils, functioning ecosystems, capable of producing nutritious food, maintaining/increasing yields while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive, profitable farms and healthy communities and economies.

The 16 month project will run from July 2020 to October 2021.

Increasing adoption of Regenerative Agriculture practices and technologies

The range of regenerative practices and technologies envisioned in the proposed interventions based on Makueni context include; intercropping cereals (maize and sorghum) with legumes (cowpeas, green grams, and pigeon peas) which improves soil health and reduces pests and diseases. These practices are a key part of integrated soil fertility management – a key response to soil degradation and nutrient depletion in agricultural soils.

The CGA trained 100 VBAs by agriculture extension staff will train 10,000 farmers on regenerative agriculture and climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies. The VBAs will also establish RA technology mother demos for grassroots farmer trainings that will lead to organization of farmer field days, trader fairs and peer to peer learning visits for the farmers to learn from their counter parts.

Strengthening community level extension and service through Village Based Advisors (VBAs)

According to National Agriculture Sector Extension Policy (NASEP) finalized in 2012, the ratio of frontline extension worker to farmers is about 1:1,000 compared to the desired level of 1:400. In the case of Makueni County, the ratio of county extension officer to farmers is about 1:1,099 (176 county extension officers for 193,531 farming households). The use of VBA model will help to leverage the efforts of the county extension system and will increase the number of smallholder farmers accessing and adopting new and improved agricultural practices and technologies.

Through the B2B platform meetings between farmer group representatives and other value chain actors, the VBAs will aggregate demand for agricultural inputs and services as well as source output markets for farmers, while earning a commission for this service. The VBAs will also be empowered to provide other farm level service lines ranging from crop protection, soil testing, value addition, among other diversified services to farmers to promote business sustainability. The 100 VBAs will be anchored on the business mentorship programme that CGA has developed over the years to provide skills and networks to ensure viability of the model.

Strengthening institutional capacities for the dissemination of regenerative agriculture practices and technologies

To enhance awareness and knowledge dissemination among farmers, farmer groups, stakeholders, VBAs and other value chain actors, key messages on regenerative agriculture practices will be disseminated through posters (500), mobile phones (5 SMS texts per farmer), and community radio (10 radio spots). This is crucial to enhancing the awareness and adoption of regenerative agriculture practices at the farm level. About 50 agriculture advocacy meetings will be held at the ward, sub-county and county level in promoting the awareness and adoption of regenerative agriculture practices at the farmer level.

The lessons learned, success/failures and adoption rates of regenerative agriculture practices and technologies will be documented and disseminated to the project stakeholders for improvement of the current interventions and replication in other parts of the county or other counties. The documentation will include the number of farmers adopting regenerative agriculture practices, technologies being adopted by smallholder farmers and the performance of VBAs in providing extension support on regenerative agriculture. The approaches to carry the documentation process include; case studies, video, and short clips as well as write-ups.

Project partners:

Funded by IKEA foundation through Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)

Farm Africa, International Institute for Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) and County Government of Makueni Agriculture department