With the Central region having one of the highest chronic diseases prevalence, residents have been frantically looking for ways to stay healthy.
Many families are struggling to have balanced meals due to the high cost of living and others being forced to sell property to pay hospital bills as diseases ravage villages.
According to the National Health Demographic Survey done in 2022, about 18 per cent of children in the country under the age of five were stunted or too short for their age, an indication of chronic under-nutrition.
Five per cent of the children were wasted or too thin for their height, an indication of acute malnutrition, while 10 per cent were underweight and three per cent overweight.
Lawrence Gitonga, a community facilitator ECOFACE, said the organization has been training local farmers on agroecological practices since 2007.
He said more than 23,000 farmers have been trained, mostly in groups, on how to produce food that enhances their health and conserves the environment, while earning an income.
“We teach farmers to make bio-inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides and even foliar because most conventional chemicals are too harsh to our bodies and the environment”.
Gitonga said farmers are also supported to establish water pans and reduce their reliance on rain-fed agriculture.
They are encouraged to using terracing and benching to enhance soil moisture and ensure rainwater does not all flow to the river.
In value addition, Gitonga said the farmers are trained to extract cooking oil from organic produce such as avocados, peanuts, sunflower and macadamia, while herbs are dried, processed and packed.
“As an organization, we also connect farmers to buyers from other areas who are interested in organic products. Since we started our activities in Murang’a, we have seen a lot of people who were weighed down by disease getting healthy and economically active,” he said.
Farmers are also encouraged to diversify their farming to give them food variety and boost their nutrition, while integrating traditional vegetables and orphaned crops for better health.
“The people growing and adding value to organic products have had their income drastically increased and those with smaller farmers have been supported to start dairy goat farming that has a very high demand. One litre of goat milk goes for more than 200 and the demand is high,” Gitonga.
