Fruit farming,a saviour in Muranga county

-If you are a farmer you well know how cruel the climate can be sometimes. We are always anticipating when the rains are going to come and when they come we want it to be average and
consistent but that is not always the case.

-Research dictates that a third of the population in Kenya directly depends on rain-fed agriculture with the bulk of them being small scale farmers.

Fruits

-The farmer always has to suffer from erratic rainfall patterns that are brought about by climate change that cripples the food production system by either drying out their farms or flooding them.
-Its always painful to see your crops getting destroyed because of climate change but we all know the solution to this. Planting more trees. Murang’a county located in central Kenya are walking the talk. -They are helping save the environment and also earning a living by practicing Fruit Tree Farming. -The county of Murang’a was a constant climate impact point. They endured erratic rains which caused landslides to occur on the baring slopes. Lives and crops were lost and all these was brought by deforestation.

-Samuel Ndung’u, a resident of Murang’a county recalls when he was a young boy when his father
filled his land with fruit tree nurseries.The trees that were later planted on their farm while others
were planted in neighbouring farms.It is still clear in his mind as he remembers the trees used to
flourish, producing fruits in surplus which became a source of livelihood for their family.

 

-With the many benefits of fruit farming, he decided to follow in the footsteps of his father and become a fruit farmer as well. Samuel now has a fruit tree nursery that has thrived having more than 200,000 fruit trees on his farm. He also directly employs 7 people and has sold over 600,000 fruit trees since 2010.
 

-Seeing the impact Samuel has made, the community around him in Murang’a have joined in the practice a multiplier effect can be noted with many of the degraded climatic conditions now
improving.
 

-The climate in Murang’a County is now a success story that demonstrates a replicable solution in
fruit tree farming to communities in Kenya facing similar climate change challenges.

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