Over the years, African continent lag behind in venturing in the organic farming, as the Europeans have established farms for
the purpose of exporting ‘clean food’ back home.
In the continent only 2.1 million acres according the data
obtained in 2019 for the purpose of organic farming, with hundreds under use of
excessive chemicals and fertilisers.
Agriculture scientists have faulted the excessive use of chemicals
in farming in Africa, while the foreign firms supply the super food in the
international market.
Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (Pelum- Kenya)
leading the campaign engaging the residents in the agro ecology practice has organized
hundreds of meetings with the farmers in the villages through the community
based organisations in efforts to promote ‘healthy’ farming.
A team of agricultural scientists led by Pelum Country Manager Ms
Rosiah Mbeya, Dr Martin Oulu, Dr David Amudavi, Robinson Kariuki, said the
African continent was lagging behind to exploit Agroecology farming, as Asia
has allocated 5.9 million acres of land, Europe 16.5 million while North
America has 3.3 million acres.
In the projection the globe agriculture experts behind the agro
ecology target to increase number of farmers in the concept to 9.7
billion in the next 29 years.
In Africa the leading counties in use of the agro ecology practice
that has engaged 850,000 farmers are Tunisia 286,623 hectares, Tanzania 278,467
hectares, Ethiopia 221,189 hectares.
In Kenya according to the Ministry of Agriculture there are
182,000 hectares of land, while in Africa 75 percent of the producers are from
the east Africa region.
Sao Tomea and Principe have 24.9 percent, Sierra Leone four
percent and Reunion islands 3.1 percent where the majority of the certified
organic produce is for export market with European Union is the major
recipient.
Kenya has 37,295 hectares under organic farming with calls to
increase the number with Dr Peter Wainaina of Kiambaa, Kiambu preparing
his two acres of land for an extensive organic farming.
In a forum with the media, the experts’ said Europe was
turning to agroecology farming, as the African continent was left using the
chemicals associated with emerging diseases like cancer, diabetes among others.
Amudavi said the international food companies have leased
hundreds of acres in parts of Africa for agro ecology farming with the produce
shipped to their countries.
“We have more firms coming to Africa for the purpose of getting
safe food for their people back in Europe. The production is for the
Europe market as the small stakeholders in the continent are left to control
pests with chemicals,” said Amudavi of BioVision Africa Trust.
According to Knowledge Centre for Organic Agriculture in Africa
Network (KCOAN) researcher Martin Njoroge in the counties of Kirinyaga and Murang’a
where 34 percent of the chemicals used are banned from the European market.
Njoroge said the study conducted last year cited that the
majority of the small-scale farmers lack proper information, and knowledge on
the use of pesticides.
“There is a big threat in the two counties as pesticide residue is
commonly consumed in kale, tomatoes among other fast-moving products. The
farmers are in threat as they don’t have personal protective equipment the same
as bees and fish,” said Njoroge.
Kamau who has converted his land to organic from the use of
the chemical says the demand for farm produce was high in the country as more
people are educated.
“The concept of agro ecology should be pushed through the
county assemblies to ensure in the coming years there are more farm produce in
the market,” said Kamau, a pharmacist.
Pelum’s County Manager Ms Rosiah Mbenya said they have been
working with 25 communitybased organisations towards addressing improvement of
agricultural practices and agroforestry.
She observed that there are a section of farmers growing coffee
and macadamia ecologically.
She said investment in the special farming is high at the start
with good return in the following years.
“Agro ecology has a lot of benefit to the soils, environment and
health as the chemicals are behind killing of friendly insects used
in the pollination in the fields,” said Mbenya.
In Africa other counties in organic farming are Uganda 1.3 percent, Togo 1 percent, Comoros 0.9 percent among others.
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