Kenya

Organic Fertilizers Cost Effective and Better for Crops

- Adam Clare

Here’s a good story about how poor farmers in Kenya have shunned expensive chemical fertilizers for cheaper organic ones.

The organic fertiliser is sprayed onto maize two weeks after planting, and a month later.

Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services through Kenya Agriculture Research Institute have tested the fertiliser’s components and given an analytical report.

Mr Mosbei said the use of organic fertiliser, apart from rejuvenating soil quality, saves farmers about 70 percent of the cost of production.

“Whereas it takes a farmer in the North Rift 100kg of DAP and 50kg of top dressing to plant an acre of maize, all they require is only eight litres at Sh300 per litre for the same acre,” said Mr Mosbei.

“The organic fertiliser enriches the soil with minerals and maintains an ample PH level for the minerals required by plants for optimum yield,” added Mr Rono.

Read the full article.

Thanks Greg!

One Amazing Fence

- Adam Clare

Fences can build good neighbours and fences can save the environment. One fence has done
wonders for protecting rhinos and water.

Colin Church, the chair of the Kenya-based Rhino Ark conservation group and a leading expert on African leading wildlife, said the fence, which took 21 years for local communities to complete, had failed to save the rhino in the uplands it surrounds.

However, it had succeeded in protecting a large forest area and the sources of four of seven of Kenya’s largest rivers, all of which rise in the Aberdares and provide electricity and water to major cities including Nairobi.

“In the early days, the motivation was to protect the black rhino, but then we all woke up to the fact that the farmers [who lived near the fence] were celebrating, and the reality is that this forested mountain area was the lifeblood for millions of people. We realised the whole ecosystem was at stake,” he said.

“Our thinking had to change.The Aberdares are now the most secure mountain ecosystem in the whole of Kenya and maybe Africa.”

Keep reading at The Guardian.

Eco Mombassa

- Adam Clare

Mombassa is going to be home to Kenya’s first eco-city. The spread of the eco-cities is fantastic news because urban living is fun and is becoming more environmentally awesome!

Construction of Kenya’s first eco-city — a residential settlement that is environmentally, socially, economically and culturally self-sustaining — has commenced on the outskirts of Mombasa, with the first phase expected to be ready for occupation by the third quarter of this year.

The whole project will take four to five years to complete.

Going by the name Hacienda, the development, located in the Mwakirunge area of the North Coast, off the Mombas-Malindi highway, will have 6,250 housing units — of two- and three-bedroom flats, and three- and four bedroom bungalows — to be developed in 10 phases.

The plan also includes a hospital, school, playgrounds and recreation facilities, a police station, commercial centres and office blocks, among other vital amenities.

According to Urban Ecology Australia, a non-profit organisation promoting people- and nature-friendly urban settlements, an eco-city is a human settlement that enables its residents to live a quality life while using minimal natural resource

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