NAIROBI, Kenya Aug 2 — Organic farmers have been urged to organise themselves and harness their collective knowledge to develop locally appropriate solutions to the country’s agricultural and environmental challenges.
Lisa Fuchs, a scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT specialising in social and agroecological systems, said farmers already possess significant knowledge that can help address challenges affecting food production.
Fuchs said farmers need to identify solutions that work within their specific contexts, organise through groups and communities, and use their collective knowledge to innovate.
“Farmers already have a lot of solutions to the agricultural challenges. They only need to understand which solutions make sense in their context, organise amongst their groups or communities and use their knowledge to innovate,” she said.
She described agroecology as a science, a farming practice and a movement that brings people together to mobilise knowledge and produce food while protecting the environment.
Fuchs was speaking in Nairobi during the 3rd National Agroecology Symposium Kenya, which brought together hundreds of small-scale organic farmers, community groups, national and county government officials and development partners.
The symposium was organised by Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM) Kenya in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.
Fuchs encouraged farmers to work closely with their neighbours and establish strategic partnerships with government agencies, agricultural extension officers and non-governmental organisations.
She said such partnerships can help communities develop solutions that respond directly to local farming conditions rather than relying solely on externally developed interventions.
“Farmers should produce crops for their families and communities to ensure that everyone has access to healthy diets,” she said.
Fuchs said agroecology is built around 13 principles, which provide a framework for developing sustainable and resilient food systems.
The principles include recycling, input reduction, soil health, animal health, biodiversity, synergy, economic diversification, co-creation and sharing of knowledge, social values and diets, fairness, connectivity, land and natural resource governance, and participation.
Fuchs explained that agroecology combines ecological farming with economic circularity and social justice.
She said the approach seeks to increase food production without harming the environment while improving soil health and creating synergies between different components of farming systems and nature.
“Beyond that, we’re looking at ensuring that food is produced in a manner that is relevant to local people, to different contexts, and that it is available to diverse people,” she said.
She added that agroecology ultimately seeks to make healthy food accessible to everyone by protecting and promoting agricultural biodiversity.
Fuchs urged farmers to diversify their production rather than concentrating on a small number of crops.
She said growing and consuming a wider variety of crops would help improve nutrition while strengthening food security and resilience.
“Growers should plant a variety of crops and not only specialise on a few limited food crops, ensure there is a diversity of different crops being grown and being consumed by diverse actors, hence contributing to nutrition targets as well as food security,” she said.
Fuchs said the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, which has a significant presence in Kenya, seeks to generate knowledge at the intersection of science and development.
She said the organisation supports new approaches to gathering knowledge and seeks to bring diverse voices into scientific processes.
According to Fuchs, agricultural research has traditionally relied heavily on top-down approaches that placed scientists at the centre of developing solutions.
She said this approach is changing as researchers increasingly embrace transdisciplinary science, which involves farmers, communities and other stakeholders in the research process.
“Stakeholders are being involved in not only developing solutions but also in testing, piloting and monitoring them to ensure that there is broad understanding by many people of the scientific processes used and the social contributions that they can make,” she said.
Fuchs said greater collaboration between scientists, farmers, communities, governments and development partners could help create agricultural solutions that are both scientifically sound and relevant to local realities.
The approach places farmers’ knowledge and experiences at the centre of efforts to build sustainable agriculture, food security, climate resilience, healthy diets and environmentally friendly farming systems in Kenya.