Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Drylands covers nearly half of the earths land surface and is home to one third of the world’s population, i.e. 2 billion people. Poverty and food insecurity resulting from land degradation and climate change is common which leads to malnutrition and other health risk factors for the people. People have lived in the drylands as pastoralists for many years but the development of increased population, climate change and conflicts have caused more and more people to seek alternative livelihoods. A portion of the population in this area experience malnutrition, based on lack of variety of the food intake. The farming situation in drylands is mostly based on stable crops as sorghum, millet, and sunflower, which are adapted to the climate and are both highly ranked in their cultural food, and the crop residues can be given to livestock. However, the periods of drought and flooding disturbs the fields more than it should, due to the degradation and instability properties of the soils. To build up and restore the land and soils again will need both new and old methods to play a role to reduce the vulnerability of farmlands to weather factors.
This study consists of interviews to follow-up after a series of kitchen garden trainings, an on-farm field experiment and evaluation of data from a household survey. The objectives of this study were to understand whether there are differences in food intake and food security in households having a kitchen garden; how the knowledge of kitchen garden farming is shared within the community, and to examine the effect of human urine on the growth of kitchen garden vegetables.
The household data collection was carried out in West Pokot and Turkana Counties in Kenya, as well as in Moroto and Napak Districts in Uganda. These four areas are included in an area called the Karamoja cluster located in semi-arid and arid drylands. The individual interviews and fertilisation experiment was carried out in West Pokot County only. The results showed differences between the areas in consumption of vegetables, and in Turkana all households interviewed, worried more about having enough food as compared to the other dryland sites. Of households not worrying about having enough food, 65% had a kitchen garden, compared to only 35 % of those that were worried about having enough food. The growth experiment did only show one significant result on the watermelon leaf measurements, probably due to poor germination caused by delayed rains. The adoption of half-moon-shaped kitchen gardens had developed among the trainer of trainers were 16 of 20 household had adopted the practise by spring 2023. It had not yet spread in the communities; however, 50% of the people that had been to the training had shared the knowledge with their community.