Eco Green partners with Busia to boost bamboo farming

Eco Green, an environmental and community-based organisation, has partnered with Busia county to promote bamboo farming.

The initiative is expected to help the border county conserve the environment, as well as improve on the tree cover.

The partnership also aims at adding value to bamboo to produce products that would enable farmers and entrepreneurs make money.

On Monday, Deputy Governor Arthur Odera led a team of conservationists in planting bamboo trees in Butula subcounty, where he encouraged Busia residents to embrace bamboo farming.

Odera also toured the Korinda prison along the Busia-Kisumu highway where he promised the county would partner with the correctional centre in providing skills to inmates so that they are able to earn a living when they leave prison.

Part of the partnership would entail sourcing and supplying bamboo to the prison where the inmates would make various products using the bamboo, subsequently promoting value addition, particularly in the making of furniture.

“Let’s go bamboo way and save our environment. There is a lot for us to gain in bamboo farming,” the deputy governor said during his visit of the prison.

Odera said that Busia would be able to fight environmental degradation and its associated effects, considering the rate at which many farmers in the county are embracing bamboo planting.

Eco Green, in its collaboration with Korinda prison, has taken up the initiative to conserve the catchment areas of a natural spring that supplies water to the prison and its environs.

Odera assured stakeholders in the agricultural and environmental conservation sectors that there would be more of such partnerships and support towards such a noble course to achieve the recommended forest cover.

Korinda prison commander Omondi Adero said the correctional facility has been undertaking the bamboo project for four years.

He further said the facility is still passionate on increasing activity at the prison by planting more bamboo trees, as well as the making of products from bamboo.

Ecosystems conservator in charge of Kenya Forest Service in Busia county Vitalis Osodo said the current estimated tree cover in the county is at 3.7 per cent.

He, however, said initiatives have been rolled out to increase the cover to meet the 10 per cent target as stipulated by the national government.

Jacky Namadi from Eco Green said the organisation has been training prisoners on conservation and technical skills on value addition.

“Together with the prisons management, the inmates have got the technical skills on doing value addition on bamboo trees,” she said.

She said the organisation is engaging more than 7,000 farmers who have planted 1.2 million bamboo trees in 6,000 acres, in Busia at the moment. 

Also present during the event were Bukhayo West and Chakol North MCAs Micheal Tallam and Dalmas Onjole, respectively.

Eco-Green was registered in 2015.

The key objective of the organisation’s registration was to promote bamboo growing for livelihood improvement and climate change adaptation.

The organisation primarily engages in bamboo farming and its value chain.

Currently, bamboo is one of the fastest growing and highest yielding renewable natural resource contributing to economic growth of many countries across the world.

Eco Green is also undertaking building capacity of artisans and entrepreneurs in areas such as furniture, weaving, handicraft, planting, training and sustainable harvesting.

Other roles played by the organisation are management, treatment, mapping, charcoal-briquettes making, propagation and construction.

(edited by Amol Awuor)