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.
In Kangari, Murang’a county, Samuel Maina who started his quest to feed healthy and boost the nutrition of his family 15 years ago, has deservedly earned the title ‘doctor’ in the area.
Neighbours who suffer from minor ailments go to his home for ‘treatment’ that is done using food.
Maina said he started his journey after undergoing rigorous training from Organic Agriculture Centre of Kenya (OACK) after which he started farming organically.
Maina, whose farm has a fresh fragrance of herbs and spices, was trained to make compost manure, pesticides, fodder and how to tend to the soil and make it less acidic.
“I started planting organic vegetables that I consumed with my family and later started selling to my neighbours. This helped complement my family’s nutrition,” he said.
After garnering more experience, Maina ventured into farming spices. With the support of OACK, he processes and packs them for sale.
The herbs include rosemary, oregano, spearmint, peppermint, apple-mint, tropical mint, sage, double tropical mint, lavender, artemisia, gooseberry and chamomile.
The herbs have helped many of Maina’s neighbours get relief from minor ailments.
“Nowadays, when my neighbours get colds or acidity issues, they rush to me and I give them herbs. This is why they started calling me doctor,” he said.
Maina said they have since formed Kangari Organic Farmers Market (Kofarm), through which they have been supported by the county government to acquire a stand to sell their produce in Kangari market, one of the busiest fresh produce markets in the county.
At the stand, they enlighten residents on the benefits of consuming organic food and many have been shifting from conventional farming and embracing agroecology.
“Consuming these foods helps us to live without diseases and stops dependency on medications because they naturally keep the body healthy,” Maina said.
“They have higher nutritional value and even when people fall sick, its only minor illnesses and they quickly heal.”
Maina said consuming the herbs together with organic food makes it easier for the body to fight diseases.
He said food grown using chemicals weaken the body functions.
This, Maina said, forces consumers to use lots of money in hospitals without understanding that it is the food they consume that compromises their health.
Because of the high demand for organic food and herbs, Maina said the market is insatiable and they have been taking advantage of exhibitions to sell seeds and help other farmers start organic farming.
“All the foods we consume, include chicken and livestock, are all organic," he said
Lawrence Gitonga, a community facilitator working OACK, said the organisation 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 fertilisers, 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 organisation, 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.
In environmental conservation, he said OACK helps to plant trees annually in Gatare forest in the Aberdare ranges and issues indigenous and fruits trees seedlings to farmers.
