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LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

In an age where climate change is increasingly threatening the traditional pastoral and agrarian occupations that characterise rural Kenya, communities need to adapt and broaden their options if they are to secure their future prosperity. Pragya is working across central, northern and western Kenya to promote alternative livelihood options for neglected rural communities, identifying the options most appropriate to local situations based on factors such as resource availability, local markets, tourism, and cultural heritage. Our livelihoods work is closely intertwined with food security and nutritional health as well. In Kakamega county, we pioneered the harnessing of local herbal wealth as a means to generate income, through the cultivation of rare, high-value medicinal and aromatic plants, a scheme which has repeatedly proven effective and sustainable. In the central and northern arid and semi-arid lands, we provide education and training in vocational skills and alternative livelihoods. Where appropriate, we complement our vocational work with youth entrepreneurship training, to encourage the development of cottage industries for the benefit of all the community.

Success story

Kenyan farmers benefit from medicinal herbs farming

In Kenya, many rare and valuable medicinal plants are collected from the wild as communities... Read More

In Kenya, many rare and valuable medicinal plants are collected from the wild as communities rely on them for traditional medicine. Agnes Mulimi is 35 year old mother of four. Motivated and guided by Pragya, in 2013, she cultivated two rare medicinal plants on her own land. The produce earned her a profit that was one and half times more than that from a traditional produce. Cultivation of crops has been her main source of income for the past 10 years. However, cultivation of the medicinal plants on her farm, she says, has been a game changer as far as family income is concerned. She planted one acre of Ocimum and Mondia whitei in her plot and after the first harvest she received more money compared to the crops she had been cultivating. This encouraged her to concentrate with the medicinal plants which has seen her educate her four children, feed and clothe them unlike before where she would struggle with paying school fees. The children are happy too because they can afford to wear shoes to school now. Agnes has also bought a cow from the proceeds from medicinal plants farming. At the same time, she uses the medicinal plants for treatments in case any of the family members get ill, and this has reduced the healthcare costs.Show Less

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LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

VOCATIONAL SKILL BUILDING

Small and marginal farmers in the Kenyan hinterlands that are chronically poor are most often held back by their illiteracy, lack of knowledge of more efficient farming methods, and inability to get their crops to market and to get a fair price for their produce. The youth residing in the districts with high incidence of poverty have little hope of escaping the poverty traps due to their low skill levels which bar them from participating in the potential economic avenues in these areas. The impoverished households suffer a very low quality of life, lacking awareness of and capacity to manage family finances and health and sanitation.

LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

VOCATIONAL SKILL BUILDING

Pragya delivers vocational skill-building activities targeting various age-groups in the Kenyan hinterlands with programs tailored to their specific needs and capability to learn. Through our rural Educational Resource Centres for example, Pragya equips young people and adults with the knowledge and skills to pursue livelihoods (or supplementary income generation) that have been identified to have significant potential in the area. Since the population is largely into farming, Pragya conducts various training on the farm sector. Training on improved agronomy, new cash crops including horticultural crops, agroforestry and plantation management help the farmers to upgrade their farming practices, take up cultivation of cash crops, reduce costs and enhance farm productivity. The farmers are also trained on post-harvest processing to move them to add value to their farm produce which significantly enhances the price they can access for it. Exposure to markets is provided along with developing skills on cooperative endeavour and negotiation, to enable farmers to set up cooperatives and access fair prices for their produce. The youth in particular are trained on alternative livelihoods such as ecotourism as well as on microenterprise development, with the aim of supporting economic diversification which is considered a route out of poverty. 

All members of households below poverty line are trained on life skills that would improve their quality of life, such as management of household finances, budgeting, savings and credit, preventive healthcare and hygiene, water management and sanitation. In addition, inputs are also provided on sustainable use of natural resources and conservation, in view of the sensitive and fragile ecologies that the communities reside in and depend on for their livelihoods.

Pragya collaborates with experts from multiple institutions to source faculty and courses for these training programs. The training content and pedagogy is suited to the farmers and youth from the rural hinterlands and comprises a mix of lectures, audio-visual modules, demonstrations and exposure visits. Beyond the training, Pragya also links up the trainees with the faculty such that there is a continual flow of information, advice and mentoring to those trained to help them effectively utilise the inputs for improving their livelihoods and incomes.

LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

VOCATIONAL SKILL BUILDING

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

Pragya’s vocational skill-building work is focussed on Below Poverty Line communities in Kakamega, Samburu, Laikipia conties.

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LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

Kakamega county, western Kenya, is home to Kakamega Forest, the region’s only tropical rainforest, a lush and diverse ecosystem and a rich repository of medicinal and aromatic plants popularly used in the traditional medicine to treat numerous aliments. However, high demand for these plants is driving rampant wild-harvesting in the forest, particularly of plants that command a market price many times that of the staple crops cultivated in the region. Several species of these majestic plants are today threatened or endangered according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List, and left unchecked the status quo could mean various species of medicinal plants vanish entirely. Aside from the destructive impact on the ecosystem (see our Conservationprogramme), once the plants are gone, so is the economic opportunity they offer - this local herbal wealth represents a vital source of supplementary income for smallholding farmers struggling to provide for themselves and their families. 

LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

Pragya’s livelihoods work in Kakamega equips smallholding farmers with the knowledge and capacity to sustainably cultivate high-value medicinal plants as a livelihood option, reducing the need for wild harvesting and helping rural communities in Kenya to harness this natural resource as a way out of poverty. 

We are training smallholders in the cultivation protocols for selected species with high market demand, and providing start-up support so communities can establish their own plantations and begin putting knowledge into practice. To aid the grassroots inter-community dispersion and sustainability of the initiative, Pragya supports the formation of village medicinal plant ‘nurseries’ equipped with green houses and irrigation facilities to ensure availability of high-quality seeds and saplings to local cultivators; we train traditional medicine practitioners and experienced local farmers to manage these nurseries, from which they can derive additional incomes. 

An essential aspect of this work is securing access to market and ensuring that the produce is market-ready. We train smallholding farming communities in post-harvest processing of and value-addition to the produce , as well as packaging and storage solutions and quality assurance. Pragya has previously conducted a comprehensive value chain and market potential analysis for medicinal plants in the region (see our Research), and in combination with our local knowledge and networks this enables us to secure links with local and regional buyers, cutting out middlemen and negotiating fair prices for equitable trading relationships. We facilitate buyer-seller meets at which the medicinal plants farmers are able to meet national level buyers and discuss sales.

As part of Pragya’s commitment to gender equity, our medicinal plants initiatives have an emphasis on women farmers, and so this project is calibrated to promote women’s economic empowerment and independence.

LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY

CULTIVATION OF MEDICINAL PLANTS

GEOGRAPHY / LOCATION

The programme on Conserving Medicinal Plants has been/ is being implemented in Kakamega county in western Kenya.

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