Impacts of Urban Agriculture Annual Report.p65 - International ...

KARI in July 2004. One of the recommendations thatcame out was for KARI and the Ministry of Agricultureto spearhead an urban and peri-urban agriculturereview process. Thus KARI, in conjunction with theMinistry of Agriculture through the ProvincialAgriculture office in Nairobi, assumed a leading role inurban agriculture in Kenya. They later organised a seriesof workshops in collaboration with Mazingira Instituteand Urban Harvest with the aim of providing anenabling environment for UPA&L. Information wasexchanged, policies were debated and evaluated,different perspectives were considered and it wasdetermined who should take on the responsibility tocarry the policy process forward. Although KARI took arole in organizing the workshop, one of the results wasthe recognition that the Ministry of Agriculture is themost appropriate institution to promote a nationalpolicy change. It was agreed that this role should be builtupon extensive research and analysis, the creation of aforum for dialogue among government, private and thecommunity sectors, and crucially, the establishment offarmers’ network to ensure a voice for the producers inthe policy change process. Mazingira Institute andUrban Harvest have continued to support this “sectoralmix and cooperation model”, as well as supporting riskassessment, participatory approaches to policy reviewand legislative reform.The platform established by the 2003 workshop wasnamed the Nairobi and Environs Food Security,Agriculture and Livestock Forum (NEFSALF). The forumserves as a space for the exchange of ideas aboutdifferent positions, priorities and activities on UPA&L. InJanuary of 2004, the Mazingira Institute, funded by theNational Resources Institute (NRI) of the UnitedKingdom, organised the NEFSALF “Community SectorMeeting” aimed at facilitating group organization andbuilding networks at the community level. The outcomeof this meeting was the establishment of the FarmersNetwork in mid 2004, which already has 105 members,some of these members being groups with theirrespective members.Another development of the Forum has been toimprove the access of farmers to the Ministry ofAgriculture and municipal services through theestablishment of jointly agreed upon strategies. As aresult, farmers identified the need for training as apriority. Two training courses have already taken place.The Forum represents an ideal space for thegovernmental institutions to become sensitive tofarmers needs and recognize and promote the benefitsof UPA&L in Kenya.The work of the forum, as well as from research resultsgenerated by Urban Harvest and other local andinternational organizations have increased knowledgeabout and understanding of UPA&L issues. This has ledto an improvement in the institutional environment inNairobi and to the possibility of national governmentmaking policy changes in favour of UPA&L. One examplehas been land reform policy. The task force working ona new national land policy invited Urban Harvest toparticipate in the drafting of the new policy and to coauthor,with the Ministry of Agriculture, a paper on urbanagriculture in Kenya to inform the policy process. Thedraft policy now includes urban land specificallydestined for agriculture as well as urban land set asidefor waste recycling, yielding compost for use in localagricultural production.Multi-stakeholder initiatives linked to urban agricultureand livestock have also been launched in Nakuru, theprovincial capital of Kenya’s Rift Valley. Followingresearch carried out in 2004 by Urban Harvest and KenyaGreen Towns Partnership Association, a Kenyan NGOactive in urban development and urban agricultureissues, it was apparent that despite support by the citycouncil on the ground, by-laws in Nakuru were unclearand in some ways unfriendly towards urban farming and41