Regenerating Rusinga Island (Lake Victoria, Kenya)

In January, 2013, I wrote an article titled, "Helping Small Farmers Help Themselves on Rusinga Island". In December of 2012, I came to Rusinga Island for the first time under the invitation of PRI Kenya to teach a PDC to women and men subsistence farmers. What emerged out of the PDC was a small group of farmers — sixteen members — organizing themselves and setting up their own association called Rusinga Island Organic Farmers Association, or RIOFA. As far as we know this is the first organic and permaculture farmers group on the island. This is a story which will be unfolding as RIOFA and other members of the community start to change the direction of their lives and the island.

After the PDC in December, I sat down with Elin Duby, Executive Director and the driving force behind PRI Kenya, and with Dennis Siroh, a Luo from Rusinga, who was our translator and facilitator. Dennis’s expertise is in group development, and he had worked with Habitat for Humanity for many years. One of our immediate challenges was for RIOFA to have its own by-laws so that they could self-regulate themselves. Over a three month period with Dennis guiding the farmers there was a unanimous consensus to monitor each other, to work together as a group, to share resources and skills and to make each person accountable for their actions. Sixteen farmers with one strong voice would allow them to have more control over the price of their produce and grains at market and to negotiate with government officials on the island for funding mechanisms. Strength in numbers would give RIOFA credibility and a strong voice. Narkiso Ouma, an eloquent older gentleman, became the chairperson of RIOFA.

My first inkling that this group was a force to be reckoned with was my first day meeting up with everybody to start a series of workshops that would run over a two month period of time. Proud of what they had accomplished, it became very clear that this was a no-nonsense group of farmers that wanted to prove to us how serious they are about being the first permaculture organic farmers on Rusinga. Each farmer had to make a commitment to attend all workshops without being paid a stipend. They would receive lunch and tea breaks only. This went against the crippling “welfare state of mind” of locals being paid off to attend any type of meetings by well intended NGOs, church organizations, health organizations, or any other type of Western organizations. There is no incentive to change if some sacrifices are not made by all. With RIOFA members agreeing not to be paid, we (PRI Kenya and Kids Are Sweet International) were in new territory. Breaking out of a dependency mindset, we were all quite aware that we were making history.

Some of the farmers came a long distance to attend a series of workshops. We agreed to hold three day workshops each week so the farmers could still attend to their fields and families. We also made individual visits to each of the sixteen farmer’s land to test their soils and to make a SAA (site analysis and assessment) as part of our agreement to help each farmer become a proactive permaculture and organic farmer and better stewards of their land. Again, the commitment we made and continue to make is to give them guidance as they transition themselves from subsistence farmers using chemicals and counterproductive methods of farming to fully responsible, self-reliant and sustainable organic farmers. Permaculture workshops, including earthworks, water harvesting, soil fertility and management, forest and food forest ecosystems, along with biointensive gardening and IPM (integrated pest management), became the framework for RIOFA.

Also included into the workshop series was Tom Mboya Health Clinic’s HIV/AIDS support group, many of whom were farmers. We would be using the health clinic as one of the permaculture demonstration sites which contained a large enclosed garden area. (More about Tom Mboya Health Clinic and HIV/AIDS support group in my next article.)

Earthworks

The rainy season usually begins in March on Rusinga Island and lasts for about three months. In February, the farmers begin tilling their farm plots, planting monocrops — corn being the main staple crop, along with cassava. Some of the farmers have farmland near the lake and if able to afford a portable pump will install a pump and pipes to irrigate their crops from the lake. The mindset is that without a water pump there is no water. Dependency on water pumps, which usually breakdown or are stolen, creates further debt to the farmers. There are no water catchment systems or water management systems being used and with deforestation rife on the island, and no top soil, when the rains come most of it runs off into the lake. Farmers are completely dependent on rainfall, which has diminished greatly over the years because of deforestation. In recent years, extreme drought conditions are becoming more common on Rusinga.

The initial earthworks workshop for RIOFA was to focus on the three SSSs; slow, spread and sink the water on their land. Farmers needed to understand how water moves through the land and how to capture water.

The farmers were shown how to make swales and banana circles. Initially only two swales were dug along with two different types of banana circle. During the heavy rains it became obvious to the farmers through observation that there was too much water coming down off the hills, which were flooding the fields next door and overrunning the swales and garden. Four more swales were dug and one of the farmers who is also an HIV/AIDS patient and was appointed by their group as our master gardener, took it upon himself to take a square piece of metal, place it in one of the over flooded swales and redirected the water into three smaller channels. It worked!

Part of a water catchment system is choosing the right plants/trees to prevent soil erosion on the swales. Lemon grass and vetiver along with cow pea were chosen. We wanted to demonstrate to the farmers that all of this can be done at no financial cost to them and to demonstrate how much more cost effective these systems were, not only financially, but also all the benefits that come with earthworks — restoring the soil, preventing soil erosion, better crops, etc.

Banana Circles

One of the banana circles was very deep and banana shoots were planted into them. After a heavy night of rain, this particular banana circle became a pond and the bananas were drowning. The other banana circle bananas were planted along with cassava and cow pea at the top ridges of the circle. Dry materials of organic matter were placed in the lower part of the circle to soak up excess water. This system operated beautifully. It was an opportunity for the farmers to actually see how one system worked over another system and how to correct mistakes.

Both the banana circles and the swales were something everyone could practice on their own land. They also learned how to prepare and plan when there is flooding during the rainy seasons and how to use it to their advantage.

Food Forests

Before deforestation on the island can be addressed on a large scale, which will take the local government and the people on the island changing their practices en masse over a long period of time, we decided that the most effective way to address deforestation and soil regeneration was to start with small food forests that could easily be incorporated onto their existing lands — both their farm plots, which are usually separated from where they live, and their family land. Agroforestry, alley cropping and silvopasturing can be used on their farmland while small food forests can be implemented on their family land. This would help restore the soil and give them a more diversified diet.

Spending a full day planting at the demonstration site allowed the farmers and support group to work with each other as a community, something that is a missing component in this area. They planted fig and mango as the upper canopy, moringa and lucaena and papaya as the middle canopy, orange trees and bananas as the lower canopy, vetiver as part of the shrub layer and passion fruit as a climber along the fence, with cow pea, sweet potato, ginger and tumeric for the ground cover.

Garden Design and Planning

The word zone was a difficult concept for the farmers, so we decided to use words such as Home Base and First Base (as in baseball, which is an American icon that they are familiar with in many countries). Home base is their kitchen gardens with plants they cook on an everyday basis, such as tomato, pepper, kale and dek. First base is their larger gardens for an entire family, which can be comprised of several families, and also may provide extra produce they can sell at market. First base requires more time to work than home base.

Planning is something they were not use to regarding their home gardens, nor the different types of gardens that could be created in small spaces. Frequency of use, how much food to grow for their family, space required for maturity of plants, life span of plants, rotational gardens, growth habits of plants, access to water, companion planting, IPM, weed reduction, all are a part of a good resilient and self-sufficient permaculture garden.

RIOFA was given companion planting charts that we adapted to the types of plants that are already grown on Rusinga Island along with other plants, such as garlic, ginger and tumeric, that are grown in other parts of Kenya and would do very well on the island. The companion planting charts, again something they were exposed to for the first time, allowed the farmers to see how they could improve their yields and reduce pests at the same time.

At the health clinic’s demonstration site, the farmers learned how to make double-reach garden beds, mound beds, “three sister beds”, a mandala garden, biointensive garden beds, vertical gardens, a small nursery, and a triangular way of planting to expand yields. All of these methods would allow better soil fertility, a decrease in pests and disease, an increase in both biodiversity and yields, less work and more time for their families.

Time and a web of connection to each other

Permaculture at root is about people and our environment. It is much more than a design system. When you are dealing with people’s survival and how to get out from underneath the bonds of aid dependency and destructive methods of survival that have stripped what was once a rich biodiverse land, it is important to recognize, as someone working in the international field of permaculture, how the design of human lives fits into all of this. It is probably the most complex and most challenging component of permaculture — how do we fit into all of this? For the Rusinga Island farmers and their families it has been decades of a life of struggle and just trying to survive. Having “free time” on their hands is unheard of, which is something we had long discussions about in and out of class. It really sparked a long hidden emotion about work and not being able to just sit still and enjoy their families and what was around them. They talked about how once upon a time, their grand parents and great grand parents passed down knowledge of seed saving, the protection and the sacredness of trees, an abundance of food and the rich cultural history of their land and people which are very much an integral part of any web of connection. For me the web of connection must also include our connection to each other and here is where permaculture can give both hope and realistic methods to achieve our goals and the future for our children, worldwide.