GROW OWN FOOD TO FIGHT PANDEMICS

We seek to improve food security, nutrition and health in poor urban households and increase their resilience towards natural and/or man made pandemics. We aim to achieve this through capacity building in simple modern urban farming technologies and providing support to urban farmers to increase productivity of food crops in their urban dwellings

The City of Kisumu is the 3rd largest city in Kenya, the principal city in Western Kenya and the headquarters of County Government of Kisumu. It is the 3rd most populated urban habitat in Kenya with over 1million inhabitants and daily transit visitors of up to 1.5million. More than 60% of its population lives in the informal settlements of Manyatta, Nyalenda and Obunga. The City has an absolute poverty of 60% and Absolute Food Poverty of 70%. It has the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence at 16%.

COVID19 has disrupted the normal daily lives of people and
they are nolonger able to go to work or look for food. The restriction of movement from rural to urban areas has limited the regular supply of food items to the urban populations.This has resulted to a rising cost of food.

More and more urban households are not able to access food easily before the pandemic. It is estimated that post-covid19 pandemic, many global economies might take sometime to recover. This will further make many households vulnerable due to lost or reduced income

We seek to harness and strengthen the ability for vulnerable urban
households especially in the Informal settlements in the City of Kisumu to produce own fresh food crops for their own consumption through adoption of simple modern urban farming technologies. 

Urban farming applies simple production methods, frequently using and reusing natural resources and urban wastes, to yield a diverse array of land-, water-, and air-based fauna and flora, contributing to the food security, health, livelihood, and environment of the individual,household, and community

Our solution is intended primarily to the vulnerable households in the informal settlements of the City of Kisumu which continue to face various challenges in accessing fresh nutritious foods for their own consumption. Excess foods may be sold to increase household income

We seek to improve food security, nutrition and health in poor urban households and increase their resilience towards natural and/or man made pandemics. 

We use simple production methods, frequently using and reusing natural resources and urban wastes, to yield a diverse array of land-, water-, and air-based fauna and flora, contributing to the food security, health, livelihood, and environment of the individual, household, and community

Urban farming is an industry that produces, processes and markets food, fuel, and other outputs, largely in response to the daily demand of consumers within a town, city or metropolis, on many types of privately and publicly held land and water bodies found throughout intra-urban and peri-urban areas.

https://docs.google.com/forms/...

We embarked on a market survey exercise to investigate the level of acceptance and degree of the willingness of the urban households ( whom are our potential customers) to grow their own foods in their current urban residences. We also investigated the current challenges the households are facing in accessing fresh fruits and vegetable from the existing various sources in the City of Kisumu. The market survey managed to get 340 respondents through structured discussions, Online survey and Questionnaire administration

KEY FINDINGS: 82.4% of the respondents were willing to start growing their own fruits and vegetables in their own residences in their city dwelling. 14.7% of the respondents were undecided while 2.9% were not willing. About 55.9% of the respondents were aged 36-50years, while 32.4% were young persons aged 18-35years. More than 80% of the respondents require training on how to produce own foods in their residences and how to acquire and use modern technologies in urban farming.

The responsibility for creating sustainable change lies with the citizenry themselves. When ordinary people are integrated into providing solutions to community problems, then we foresee an end to the many problems facing many societies around the globe

currently we are serving about 500 urban households. In the next 5years we hope to reach 10,000 households

• Improved food security in the City of Kisumu
• Increased Household income levels
• Access to Better Nutrition
• Greener neighborhoods in the City

in addition,

ECONOMIC GROWTH: This project shall expand the economic base of the City  of Kisumu through production, processing, packaging, and marketing of consumable products. This results in an increase in entrepreneurial activities and the creation of jobs, as well as reducing food costs and improving quality

SOCIAL IMPACTS: This project shall have a large impact on the social and emotional well-being of individuals through decreased levels of stress and better overall mental health when they have opportunities to interact with nature through a garden. Urban gardens are thought to be relaxing and calming, and offer a space of retreat in densely populated urban areas

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND PROTECTION: Urban gardening focuses on the use of household waste as fertilizers will reduce the levels of urban environmental pollution thereby increasing the urban resilience to climate changes. This further contributes to reduced GHG emissions. 

The main risk is the lack of sufficient funds that shall limit our reach a wider number of beneficiaries. Moreso, due to the high poverty levels, the cost of urban farming inputs may be too expensive to the target end users. This may lower uptake levels and demoralize the beneficiaries. 

CKUAA  shall mobilise the participation of other stakeholders and mobilise for financial and non-financial support. CKUAA  intends to develop an asset financing product with financial service providers to allow end users acquire the inputs and pay for them in instalments

126

S.N

Name of Staff

Position

Area of Expertise

Experience (Yrs)

Envisaged role in the ‘Right to Food: Evidence to Action Project’

Samba Nixon Otieno

Team Leader

Food Science

15

Team Leader

Jemima Anyango

Project Manager

Community Mobilisation/Finance Management

10

Project Manager

Jabes Yala

Community Extension Officer

Crop Protection

15

Community Extension Officer

Dennis Ndira

Community Extension Officer

Animal Production

17

Community Extension Officer

Brenda Achieng

Community Mobilization Officer

Community Development

5

Community Mobilization Officer

Margaret Aoko

Food Nutritionist

Food Nutrition

8

Community Nutrition

Integrated Actions for Innovative Food Systems Actions across Rural Urban Communities Project by the The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and County Government of Kisumu, Department of Agriculture