In Brief
AEP operates in zones where poverty, natural resource degradation, and food insecurity levels are high. Challenges include scarce land and water resources, declining soil productivity, high pest and disease incidences, changing climatic conditions, and limited access to resources for women, who are the main drivers of agricultural production.
Details
AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (AEP)
Context
AEP operates in zones where poverty, natural resource degradation, and food insecurity levels are high. Challenges include scarce land and water resources, declining soil productivity, high pest and disease incidences, changing climatic conditions, and limited access to resources for women, who are the main drivers of agricultural production. People are highly dependent on farming for their livelihoods, and rains are becoming less predictable and crop failures more frequent.
Goal: A sustained food and nutrition security as well as improved income for poor and vulnerable communities in Homabay.
Project:
- Farmers Research Network (FRN)
Goal: To harness an established farmer research network to design and implement research to address priority challenges to agriculture through involvement of farmers in the development, testing, and dissemination of suitable agricultural technologies with potential to increase productivity and add value to agriculture, human nutrition and health.
Research Activities
Over the past few years, the project has undertaken several experiments related to issues identified by farmers as priorities. In the first year, trials were conducted on various post-harvest pest management options, including solarization, sun drying, and ash treatments. Carried out the second and third years were trials of sorghum varieties that would grow well under changing climatic conditions and in different local contexts. These included varieties developed at Rongo University, two varieties from Kenya seeds, and some commercial and some farmer varieties. In year three, striga management options were tested, some of which could also improve soil fertility (uprooting, intercropping with desmodium or with legumes, adding manure/compost). In this, the project’s fourth year, bean trials of consumer-preferred varieties are being conducted to identify performance in different contexts.