The Sack Gardens of the Kibera Slums

One of Kibera's artificial sack gardens. Photo courtesy: The Standard

Approximately 1.5 years ago, I wrote a blog on the first farm ever in Kibera, Kenya. The reclamation process that brought this organic farm into being is nothing short of inspiring. Now the women of Kibera, a slum in Nairobi, Kenya are taking the initiative in supporting their families by growing fresh vegetables in sack gardens.

The Kibera slum located in Nairobi, Kenya is possibly the largest slum in sub-Saharan Africa. There is somewhere between 700,000 - 1,000,000 people living in 400 hectares - approximately one-half the size of Central Park in New York City.

The many challenges that people face in Kibera include overcrowding, a lack of water (clean or otherwise), practically no sanitation services; and, a lack of land ownership. Despite these hardships, some residents are managing to thrive.

These residents are an enterprising group of mainly female farmers who are growing food for their families; and, managing to grow enough to sell some to their neighbours as well. These "self-help" groups are springing up all over Kenya giving youth, women and vulnerable people the opportunity to organize; share information and skills; and improve their well-being while giving them a voice that would not be heard otherwise.

These women are growing vegetables in what they call "vertical farms or vertical gardens". These farms are tall, recycled sacks filled with soil. The women grow crops in them on different levels (vertical farms) by poking holes in the bags and inserting seeds and/or seedlings at different levels. The crops planted are usually spinach, kale, sweet pepper and spring onions; but, there are other choices of veggies available.

The women’s group received training, seeds, seedlings and sacks from the French non-governmental organization (NGO) Solidarites to start their sack gardens.

The International Committee of the Red Cross recognized sack gardening as a solution to food security in urban areas during the 2007/08 political crisis in the slums of Nairobi. For approximately a month, no food was allowed to enter any of the slums from rural Kenya; but, thanks to the number of women growing food in sack gardens; and, on public land (railway lines, river banks), most residents didn't go without food.

These unassuming-looking sack gardens provide big benefits both to the family and the rest of the community. The owners of the gardens enjoy better nutrition, food security; and, possibly some sort of additional income. Any surplus produce these farmers have is sold to their friends and neighbours who enjoy the benefit of incredibly fresh produce. It doesn't get any fresher than being bought the same day it is picked. All the women who own sack gardens swear that their home-grown vegetables taste better because they are grown without chemicals; and, are eaten at the peak of freshness. The pride of eating the fruits of their own labour probably adds a certain spice that other veggies don't have.

Solidarites has pledged to continue providing seeds and/or seedlings to the urban farmers free of charge as well as the sacks and other necessities. In addition to providing the physical necessities for the gardens, they teach new gardeners how to get the most out of their sack gardens. The urban gardeners of the Kibera slum go to the Solidarites site where experienced gardeners just pick the seedlings they want; and, inexperienced gardeners receive valuable information, hints, tricks; and, the materials to begin their gardening.

Unfortunately, they have found that there are two problems with their sack gardens. The first are goats. The goats love the fresh greens as much as the families who own the gardens do; and, goats go to great lengths to gain entry to the garden area so they can eat their fill. The other problem is human. They are called the "midnight harvesters" by the gardeners because they come in the middle of the night and raid the sack gardens taking the produce.

These gardens in the alley may be vulnerable to the "midnight harvesters".

The residents of the Nairobi slums are creative, inventive and determined if nothing else. Mary Mutola has farmed "her" land for over two decades. She and other farmers, mostly women, have divided the land and farm it together. The land is legally not hers nor does it belong to any of the other farmers who use it. In reality, the land is owned by the National Social Security Fund which has allowed the women to farm the land through an informal arrangement. The most popular crops to grow are spinach, kale, spider plant, squash, amaranth and fodder.

Unfortunately, the farmers have no legal right to farm the land (or even be on the land); and, consequently have been forced to stop farming several times over the years. The harassment has slowed; but, the challenges to continued farming persist.

One of the more recent challenges these women face is the loss of their unofficial irrigation and fertilization system. The women had been using untreated wastewater - sewage from a sewer line they had tapped into - to feed and water their crops. While wastewater can contain alot of viruses, bacteria, pathogens, contamination from heavy metals; and, other undesirables, it provided a rich, free source of fertilizer to farmers too impoverished to buy them. The other benefit was that the farmers didn't have to depend on rainfall to water the crops. Good thing because in sub-Saharan Africa, droughts are getting longer and rainfall is getting scarcer.

However, the city didn't see any of the benefits; just the drawbacks. Despite this, Mutola and the other women are continuing to problem-solve by finding new and creative ways of growing food crops for their own use or sale.

The farmers, in partnership with Urban Harvest, are managing not only to grow enough food to eat and sell; but, amazingly are also becoming seed suppliers of traditional African leafy vegetables. The traditional vegetables include amaranth, spider plant and African nightshade. They are doing so well they are able to supply Nairobi with these high-demand vegetables and grains.

While these farmers have always grown fodder for livestock for both the urban and rural farmers, their establishment of a sustainable source of seed for traditional African vegetables is helping to break down the commonly-held belief that only the poor living in cities benefit from urban agriculture.

The farmers have developed a technique of using very small plots (about 50 sq m {538 sq ft}) and double beds to raise seeds quickly. Some of the fast-growing varieties like amaranth and spider plant can be raised from seed to seed-producing in as little as 3 months. These seeds are worth roughly 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($40 US) in profit for the 3 months work. One of the bonuses of this type of farming is that because the plots are small, they take very little additional type to weed and manage.

To put this in perspective, rent for a family can range from $6.00 - $10.00 a month; so, we can see that while this may be rent for 3-4 months, nothing else is covered like food, clothing, or any other necessity of life. They dare not even think of a luxury item.

These landless farmers are gardening on the edge. The land they use can be taken from them at anytime, the drought can eventually win the fight for their crops; and/or, the loss of access to wastewater for irrigation and fertilization could prove insurmountable.

Photo courtesy: Care2

I'd like to end with a quote from one of the ladies who is benefiting from the sack garden program:

"With this project, nobody, especially among the womenfolk, has any excuse to be idle," Agnes Ndalo, one of the beneficiaries, says. "The traditional housewife who would spend hours on end in a neighbour's house in fruitless banter is no longer here. Women are busy tending their sack gardens, replacing dead seedlings or watering them."

A video produced by Solidarites:



Via allAfrica

Kibera's FIRST Farm Ever is Organic

Sometimes the strength of the human spirit to overcome obstacles and soar unfettered to heights miles away from their beginning brings tears to my eyes. The following is such a story. Every life should at one time or another be touched by a Victor Matioli of their own.

Victor Matioli grows plump organic pumpkin, aromatic coriander, and spinach that has been declared by those that eat it “very soft, sweet and tasty.” Victor is an organic farmer with a half-acre farm in a former rubbish dump in the heart of east Africa’s biggest slum.

The sight of tall, golden sunflowers planted to help neutralize the contaminated soil, drew so much attention growing amid the rusted shacks, garbage and dirt paths of Kibera that the gardeners had to put up a “No Photographing” sign to allow them to work in peace. Since the reputations of the farmers are well known – they are all reformed criminals – the sign is taken very seriously indeed.

The unlikely organic farm along with its equally unlikely reformed caretakers has its start in the turmoil that gripped Kenya at the start of the year. The densely-packed slum, home to up to a million people, was overrun with ethnic clashes and street battles between riot police and protesters demonstrating over flawed presidential elections.

One of the greatest concerns facing the country now was a looming hunger crisis with those in the slums having the potential to be the hardest hit of all. Su Kahumbu, managing director of Green Dreams

(www.greendreams.edublogs.org), was particularly concerned. Green Dreams is one of Kenya’s pioneer organic produce companies.

Her initial plan of a mass distribution of seeds to small-scale farmers in the Rift Valley to enable them to plant before the April rains was halted by a lack of funding. After that disappointment, a friend told her about a group of young, unemployed men in Kibera with an outrageous plan. They wanted to learn to farm -- inside the slum.

When she was showed photographs of their would-be garden patch, she thought, “You MUST be joking”. There was so much garbage there, there seemed to be little room left for anything else. The rectangle of land bordered the railway line that cuts through Kibera and was being used as a refuse dump by nearby residents.

Piled high were plastic cartons, cans, broken bottles, chicken and goat bones, as well as innumerable "flying toilets" - polythene bags filled with human waste, a grim reminder of the slum's lack of sewage facilities. But when Kahumbu saw the enthusiasm among Matioli's 36-member Youth Reform Group, she agreed to help them get started. The men, mostly in their 20s, some having served jail terms, set about cleaning the site in late April.

Instead of making the problems around them worse and simply dumping the rubbish elsewhere, it was painstakingly compacted and tied down under tarpaulins on one side of the plot. The soil which hadn’t seen the light of day for years still contained traces of refuse, mainly old strips of plastic, and Su Kahumba sent samples away for analysis. In the meantime, her brother laid down a network of drip irrigation pipes linked to a water tank.

The soil tests revealed high; but, not dangerous, levels of zinc, which could be drawn out by planting sunflowers among the vegetables. Still, Kahumbu felt that it would be wrong to teach the men conventional farming methods.

"The toxin levels in Kibera are already high and I did not think it was fair to add to them," she said. So, it was agreed that, soil quality and surroundings aside, Kibera's first modern-day farm would be organic. Fertilizer would come from vegetable scraps turned into compost, and from plant-nourishing "worm juice" produced by the earthworms kept in a half-barrel of soil. Within two months of planting, the first vegetables were successfully harvested. The farmers buy some of the produce; the rest sells swiftly within the slum.

Netting 10p ($0.20) for a cabbage and £1 ($2.00) for a pumpkin, Matioli's collective made a profit last month - a modest sum; but, one that made him confident of the farm's sustainability. "People here are really interested in learning about our organic methods," said Matioli.