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| Nairobi: The challenges of urban and peri-urban agriculture,” Voices of the poor” |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
As far as contamination of human waste is concern, experts point out that the main health risk is to the farmers, unless consumers eat the vegetables uncooked or the fruits with their skin on. But there is far more risk from toxic contamination in towns. Industries, petrol stations, garages, and workshops discharge chemicals into the waste water as well. Currently the CGIAR is supporting a multi-stakeholder health impact analysis of urban agriculture. The results should help urban planners and farmers in many cities of developing countries.
In Kahawa Soweto village in Kasarani, 21 kilometers west of Nairobi, there are around 5,000 inhabitants, with about half of the adult population involved in agriculture. Nearly a quarter of this agricultural production involves growing crops. Vegetables growing are preferred, as the market is good and money better. Many sell direct to their neighbors in the slums. Crops are grown along the railway line that cuts through the slum, and by the River Kiuu, which is fed by more than four sewage drainage systems. Sewage water irrigation is carried out mainly around the three sewage-stabilizing ponds at the extreme south side of the village.
Although a 2002 municipal control program attempted to terminate the practice, vegetable growing is still the major form of crop farming in this “irrigated” agricultural system. Urban farmers in the area are able to farm because they have access to free land nearby, and on a recent visit, they were still irrigating their crops with sewage water diverted from an obviously hand-punctured sewer pipe. None would comment on where their water came from, but the crops visible from high point in the slums were plentiful. The local farmers call this sewage-farming irrigation “night water.”
On a brighter note, Soweto is cleaner than most slums in and around the city. There is an organized community-based waste management group called Soweto Youth in Action, which charges 20 shillings per household per bag of waste collected each week. On a free public piece of land in the village, the group sorts the household waste and composts the organic component, adding manure to enrich it on advice from KARI. Youth in Action has been giving this organic material free to local vegetable farmers, but now they hope to grow amaranth as a commercial crop with the enriched compost. With the help of the city council, some of the organic component is taken to another city dump site. The group’s activities are boosted by a high literacy level among the members, the readiness of the members to provide manual labor, and availability of tools like wheelbarrows which were bought using investor’s funds.
Soweto is also home to livestock farmers, who tend cattle's, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens, and rabbits. Cattle are plentiful and much desired, as they produce manure useful in farming and milk for sale and for home consumption. Most of the livestock farmers practice zero-grazing in 6-meter-square enclosures that double as home and hearth to farmers as well. The animals produce huge amounts of manure for composting, yet nearly two-thirds of the total manure produced in the village is dumped in public places-behind the village- and large heaps can be found piled around Soweto. Only 35 percent of the manure produced in the village is used for crop production.
These urban farmers will, within two decades, constitute the majority of farmers in Africa. Half the world’s population now lives in town or cities, and by 2020 this figure is expected to rise to 60 percent. The developing world will absorb most of the additional 1.5 billion urban dwellers. In Africa alone 50 percent of the population will move to cities. Already these trends are having sever effects on food security, poverty levels, and unemployment.
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