The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR and World Agroforestry (ICRAF) joined forces in 2019, leveraging a combined 65 years’ experience in research on the role of forests and trees in solving critical global challenges.
Kenyan pilot for ambitious Africa-wide farmer-driven restoration project takes first steps
Restore Africa is a small-scale farmer-driven land restoration project by the Global EverGreening Alliance (GEA) to restore 1.9 million hectares and directly support 1.5 million smallholder farmers across six African countries. It’s one of the world’s biggest farmer-led restoration programs, which aims to serve both livelihoods and ecosystems. “We care about climate change – and we care even more about people,” said Sally Armitage, GEA’s head of media and communications, during a visit to a pilot site for the project in Kenya’s Kitui County in September 2022.
The project is expected to accelerate and massively scale up the adoption of Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration (FMNR) and other complementary practices in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Kenya, and Ethiopia by building on existing successful projects and evidence-based, effective approaches. It will also significantly contribute to the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, which aims to bring at least 100 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030.
In Kitui, the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) is implementing the pilot in partnership with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA). Together with local communities and other stakeholders at the national and county level of government, ADRA has so far trained more than 230 ‘farmer trainers’, who will be key in training more farmers to implement the project across Kenya. Through Restore Africa, they have also trained 60 trainers of trainers (ToTs) – 30 in rural Kitui and 30 in Kitui West – with an even gender distribution, and an ambitious target of reaching at least 15,000 farmers across the county, who will be critical in rolling out the project.
A prolonged drought, which has lasted almost two years, has been a significant setback for the project. However, enthusiastic residents told Armitage that they were yearning to start on the restoration work. Koinari Saidimu – Assistant County Commissioner for Kitui Central – said there was plenty of potential to improve tree cover in the area as a way of mitigating future droughts. “People here have first-hand experience of the negative effects of climate change, and they are more than willing to participate in any process that will help change the situation,” he said. Beyond tree planting, the planned project will also incorporate bee keeping, and soil and water conservation.
Sourcing seedlings, serving women: meet local grower Vivian Kanini
On the bank of Kalundu River, just outside Kitui Town, Vivian Kanini is helping women and youth establish tree nurseries that will be key in supplying seedlings for the project. Kanini says she mostly supports women who are victims of gender-based violence (GBV) and who she trains in preparing land and establishing nurseries – an ethic that’s in line with Restore Africa’s wider goal of deliberately targeting support towards the most vulnerable members of society, including women, youth, marginalized groups, and people with disabilities.
“I realized most of those who had been exposed to GBV had an underlying economic gap that needed to be addressed to prevent them from going through that kind of abuse again, so I started bringing them into this project so that as they become economically empowered, they are less likely to suffer GBV,” she said.
Kanini has also been challenging project members to plant the number of trees equal to their age when celebrating their birthdays. Her nursery, which is spread over about two acres of land, currently hosts more than 50 people, who are learning how to establish nurseries and set up their own in different locations. She says she has about 700,000 seedlings on the farm, with more than 50 varieties available for sale or distribution.
Thinking big
Restore Africa targets tree-growing both on farms and off farms. In Kitui alone, proponents aim to facilitate the planting of more than 300,000 trees, and the management of over 700,000 existing trees through FMNR. Seedlings for tree planting will be sourced locally in nurseries like Kanini’s. Overall, they aim to directly impact 15,000 households in Kitui Rural and Kitui West sub-counties through adoption of evergreening practices such as agroforestry and associated tree-based value chains.
“I am certain that if we implement this according to the four-year plan, then we can scale up to other sub-counties in Kitui and other counties in Kenya,” said Jared Gambo, a research associate at CIFOR-ICRAF. “The goal is to increase resilience to climate shocks for smallholder farmers and pastoralists through rehabilitation of degraded landscapes and improving carbon stocks, increasing household income, assets, food, and nutrition security.”
Stephen Mulwa, a farmer trainer from Kitui West, was optimistic that the program is on course to help reverse the negative effects of climate change that the area has witnessed over the years. “I want to train as many farmers as possible in how to plant and manage existing trees, because if we don’t take action then poverty and climate change will only make life worse for us,” he said.
The same optimism was expressed by Jeniffer Mutinda, a farmer trainer from Kitui Rural.
“We have more confidence because now we know which trees to grow on the type of soil we have and the climate we live in,” she said. “This gives us hope that we will one day restore our degraded land. The journey has started.”