A theme of the community leaders we met on our first two field trips was the need to develop new farming methods that increase yield and assure sustainability—in contrast to the vast expanses of maize, struggling to survive drought and kept barely alive by commercial fertilizer, that dominate the landscape across Kenya. Our first outing on Tuesday 12 January was to the village of Mai Mahiu in the Rift Valley northwest of Nairobi, where we started the day by planting trees among the recently planted maize and bean crop of a small Maasai community that is working with Christian Community Services, a development outreach of the Anglican diocese of Mount Kenya South. CCS is one of the groups with whom Christian Reformed World Relief works most closely in several areas of Kenya. Deep holes had already been dug in preparation, to ensure that when rains come once more in March and April the saplings will get plenty of water. Each of us—twelve Calvin students, half a dozen community members who had just given us a short briefing on their work, and Susan and me—picked up a couple of tree seedlings, found a hole not yet occupied somewhere on the wide expanse of the planted fields, got down on hands and knees to dig a seedling into the soil a foot or so below the surrounding soil level, and then pushed enough soil back into the hole to provide support. In the arid climate of the valley floor, we were told, food crops wither unless you plant trees to give them shade. It was a beautiful scene—bright morning sunshine, the high walls of the valley and a volcanic peak, Mt. Longenot, in the distance—and the students seemed delighted to get their hands dirty and do some work in the fields.
Later that morning near Mai Mahiu, and again on the following day in the highlands near Chania, in the Mount Kenya region northeast of Nairobi, we visited several organic farms that share several techniques for improving crop yields and conserving soil fertility. Vegetables are planted in poly bags of soil, enriched with manure, that are then placed on the ground—with no holes for drainage, because water is in such short supply during the many months between Kenya’s two rainy seasons. At one farm we looked in amazement at tomato plants, trained to twine, that climbed well over our heads. They were heavily laden with ripening fruit, each vine rooted in a poly bag about 12 inches across. Maize was planted not in the usual rows but in clusters of six stalks in small depressions in the soil where organic matter had been dug in deeply before planting. The depressions catch water, and the rich soil will support three crops before it’s necessary to dig in more fertilizer. Cowpeas and other legumes are planted among the maize plants, as nitrogen-fixing “green manure.” The plants grow so densely that the field is impenetrable, in sharp contrast to the dry and spindly maize in neighboring fields. At the first farm we visited, in the dry valley, we found gigantic zucchini (“courgettes” here) that the students took back to the YMCA to give to the kitchen, along with some sugar cane stalks eight feet long. Most of Kenya got some rain in early January—a very unusual event—but there is very little green still showing in most fields. On this farm, where tall trees provide shade and careful contouring holds water, everything was flourishing.
Let me introduce John, a farmer and posho mill operator of 60 who conducts classes in his village in the foothills near Chania on improving crop yields. (“You are my age-mate!” he cried, on learning that I will join him this year in reaching that milestone—and for Kikuyu like John the age cohort is a central part of one’s identity.) He welcomed us warmly and extended his hand—missing several fingers from an injury long ago—and then took us on a tour of his farm, which is no more than a quarter acre in total. In one corner he showed us the artificial wetland he created to store rain runoff and grow arrowroot, in another the rows of huge squash plants and cabbages growing out of poly bags. Nearby in a coop were the chickens and rabbits that he feeds entirely with unneeded greens and trimmings from his crops, alongside a five-foot high pile of beans still drying on their vines til they are ready to shell. As we walked around John kept up a constant narrative about neighbors who can feed their families from their shambas for the first time in their lives, and he said he had solved the problem of poor attendance at community meetings to discuss AIDS prevention and treatment. He calls meetings to tell his neighbors how they can harvest vegetable despite drought and keep plants vigorous enough to repel pests without chemicals, and then while he has their attention he devotes half the meeting to STDs and their prevention. Our students were greatly impressed by John. “He could persuade anybody to do anything!” wrote some in their journals. What I found especially interesting was the dynamic of community leadership that we were observing in action in Chania. The residents who briefed us about their work and took us from site to site are well-informed, committed, articulate—and very young. A few may have attended university, and all, I think, completed secondary school, which is far more schooling than is typical in the villages where they work. When they bring new ideas—how to conserve water, treat illnesses, overcome ethnic conflict, or simply grow more maize—no doubt they are given a polite hearing. And then ignored, because they’re so young and haven’t been farming for several decades. But when the same advice comes from older men or women in the community, it is far more likely to bring change. Anybody can go off to school and come home with impressive new theories, after all. But when someone like John embraces and acts on their recommendations, and when you see the size and vigor of the crops he harvests, you are ready to follow suit.
The contrast between the two areas we visited was dramatic: broad, open expanses of land in the Rift Valley, parched by the sun during the dry seasons; rolling hills where neatly organized fields alternate with patches of forest on the steep valley slopes of Gatundu South district. As we climbed up into the hills, from Chania to the village of Mataara, coffee plants gave way to tea plantations, where we saw residents of the villages plucking leaves and filling huge baskets that they carried on their backs to the sheds of the tea buyers nearby. Farther to the west tea growing is dominated by a few large corporations, but here in the eastern part of the Kenyan highlands it is a very local industry, and many families have a plot of tea bushes in addition to their farmland for growing vegetables. 