6th Soil Not Oil (SNO) International Conference- Aug 14–15th, 2020 (Online)

To watch the two-day 6th Soil Not Oil (SNO) International Conference, please visit the SNO YouTube channel here.

Session: Promoting Agroecological Solutions in Kenya

Facilitated by Esther Ngumbi (Assistant Professor of Entomology and African-American studies and the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)

Stella’s presentation: An Urban & Social take on Agroecological Solutions in Kenya

See a clipping of Stella’s video presentation here.

SOURCE: SNO YouTube video.

Below is a transcript of the clipping:

Esther:

What inspired your interest in farming and what has your experience been?

Stella:

My experience. I’ll give it as the social aspect. It started at home.

I would call my parents urban farmers; they practice their own version of urban farming (it’s definitely small-scale). We don’t discard organic waste, that’s compost for the farm. And over time, my mum has become more and more interested in seed banks. We have date, melon, avocado, bell pepper, tomato seeds. And I sort of feel like these habits are picked up as we go along; it’s a very organic process.

Currently I’m looking forward to our first batch of something close to terra preta. It’s something that I’m curious about, just by virtue of it being roughly what the Aztecs used, what we know as Amazonian soil. So, for this, we’ve been collecting eggshells and ash for our compost. And I feel like this would be great for seed balls, and so anyone who’s exploring no-plough farming, might find this interesting.

The point is, there are so many things we could do at home. Agroecology is accessible. Like, the terra preta and seed balls, they’re simply a product of food preparation in the kitchen.

Also, aside from food, water and energy resilience, I have channeled my interest in the environment into climate resilience infrastructure, that’s for example, looking at flood walls to reduce exposure to floods. We know that floods are a big problem in Kenya. That’s through LOABOWA, a long-term endeavour of mine.

But also, on a social level, I’m engaged with some African activists, trying to forge climate friendships. It’s been quite interesting for me to see the effect that activism has on awareness. Africa depends heavily on agriculture, and so with climate change, warming 1.5 times faster than the rest of the world, is bad news. It means soils drying up, reduced soil organic matter, leading to widespread desertification. And then comes conflict due to limited resources, and migration.

There’s a chance, that people being aware of this empowers them to act. A good example of this is the campaign, Act on Sahel, similar to the great green wall of Africa, which altogether address the issue of the encroaching Sahara Desert. And for which, hundreds of millions of trees have been planted.

Esther:

Tell us a bit more about urban food systems in Kenya. What do they look like and what are the challenges they face?

Stella:

Nairobi relies heavily on other counties to meet its food requirements. So, what we have is a centralized food system. The problem with this is, it’s easily disrupted. Events such as a locust invasion, political unrest or currently, covid-19, pose a threat; we’ve bought food, vegetables, meat even, during the pandemic, that wasn’t the usual fresh.

A challenge is, due to limited space, people in the city don’t often grow their own food. However, others have chosen to see this as an opportunity. During covid, a few friends have said, that while at home, they noticed they have more time to start their own vegetable planters; which translates to less shopping in the end.

To address the issue of centralized food systems, calls for innovation. A decentralized undertaking. Our own take on micro-grids. This could be container farms and such. But with this solution, another familiar challenge comes in.

It reminds me of the global ‘Plastic free July’ challenge last month. Going plastic free is not accessible to everyone, in fact you could argue that it’s for the privileged. Not everyone can substitute their plastic cup or bottle and, in some cases, plastic bag, with a tumbler or a coffee mug. In the same way, talking about micro-grids as a solution, favours a few. It’s not that accessible to the urban poor, which is due to limited access to land.

Even so, they still find ways around this, for example in Kibera (a slum in Kenya), you’ll find people growing food in gunny bags; we call them gunia. But also, on the flip side, others end up farming in places that might be toxic, which compounds the food problem.

So, the issue of access to land, brings me to another, the issue of land governance.

The poor in Nairobi, about 55% (around 2 million people), occupy 5% of the total urban residential land area. It’s really crammed.

And so, if food is a human right, as we say it is, then by extension, you can make the case that access to land for the production of food (for the urban poor) is also a human right.

And there is a solution for this within land governance. Community land use rights are recognised, so maybe it’s just a matter of offering the urban landless, access to land where they can grow their own food. And possibly, they live without the constant fear of being evicted.

But I understand that this is not that straightforward.

We envision a world where no one’s left behind. It is projected that there will be a higher urban population in the future, which then means, a higher population of urban poor. If the issue of land governance is not resolved, food insecurity will persist into the future, and ultimately, we’ll be further away from urban food security than we are now.

On land governance, another issue still, that is Land conversion.

We know that soil is a carbon sink. So, a higher level of land converted to built space is a big problem.

It’s a bit like drilling for oil (bear with me for the analogy), we take something that’s underground, stable and harmless, and we use it above ground, registering a carbon and plastic footprint that have become a disaster. In somewhat similar fashion, we dig stones from a quarry, extract them for our buildings. So, with sprawling buildings, (a common sight in the city, which has infected other counties due to devolution), we have large land areas covered in these rock formations, that aren’t carbon sinks, like the soils they displace.

So, maybe the solution to this as well, housing a population that’s constantly on the rise, is a shift to high-rise buildings; less sprawling, more altitude. Also, in order to restore function to the soils, that we’d be saving by building high-rises, it would be important to allow regeneration. To increase soil organic matter, its productivity and its capacity to store carbon.

Esther:

Please give a conclusion, in the context of your presentation on the urban and social aspects of food systems in Kenya.

Stella:

On the social aspect.

We shouldn’t fully bank on government to solve these problems. No one can solve environmental problems alone; nor agroecological or climate change; all these environmental problems. We need NGO’s, community, public, private entities. Everyone.

And so, there is room for everyone with the capacity to participate. You can start home, start small and engage others. This could be vegetable planters, which evolve into community farms, to decentralize our food system.

A bit of a segue

I’ve read that plants and animals share many of the same genes, we just use them differently. And borrowing from the writer Yuval Noah Harari, it would seem we specifically have an ability that sets us apart. Telling stories!

With regard to land governance, he says, ‘..nations, borders, money, all of these things are an imagined reality’.

So, do we recognize that Land doesn’t belong to us? Is a question I’d like to leave with everyone. The problems that the story, that land belongs to humans (or sapiens if you like), is obvious for all to see. That that story doesn’t serve anyone.

Telling stories is key to gaining from any solution available. No other living thing on the planet, would be able to make much of the same solutions, if we handed them to them; not as we would. And that’s, through our ability to coordinate in large numbers and organize, by telling stories. Therefore, although we have caused a great deal of harm to the planet, by coordinating in large numbers and organizing, which we have the ability to recognize, we are also, the only solution.

Stella Nyambura Mbau PhD

Founder & CEO LOABOWA

#soilnotoil