Project Description

Project Goal: Food security of marginalized agro-pastoral households in Nuu division of Mwingi district is improved.

Strategic Objective 1: Increased food availability and income by 1,250 drought prone and marginalized households.
IR 1.1: Increased production and collective marketing of selected crops, high value trees (HVT) and vegetables.

IR 1.2:  Farmer associations are strengthened to increasingly engage in profitable agro-enterprises.

Strategic Objective 2: Increased access to water resources that encourage multiple use of water, for improved hygiene practices, sanitation, agricultural production and livestock watering by 1,250 drought prone and marginalized households.

Intermediate result (IR):       2.1:  Increased water harvesting for multiple uses
2.2: Increased access to potable water 
2. 3: Improve hygiene and sanitation practices
2.4:  Increased soil and water conservation

Planned Activities:

• Construct five earth / sand dams through voucher for work.
• Form five water users associations with elected water and sanitation committees and strengthen their capacity to own, manage and operate the water facilities. Train family members on hygiene and sanitation. The hygiene education will emphasize proper hand washing practices.
• Promote the construction of low cost Arbo Loo toilets by training five artisans on slab making and providing slabs to households without toilets (estimated to be 30% of total households).
• Create awareness on use of filled up Arbo Loo pits to grow fruit trees like mangoes, pawpaw or banana and pumpkins.
• Construct soil and water conservation structures to conserve 1,250 ha of farmland using voucher for work.
• Train 60 farmers groups on efficient use of water including drip irrigation for high value crop production using the farmer field school approach.
• Assist small farmer groups around earth dams to establish tree nurseries to promote reforestation and high value fruits (mango and pawpaw) production among farmers.
• Strengthen 10 collective farm produce marketing associations’ organizational capacities Facilitate 10 collective farm produce marketing associations’ to develop profitable green gram, fruits and vegetables agro-enterprises. Facilitate 60 farmers groups to start SILC.
• Facilitate creation of awareness on the partnership between Kitui Diocese and the Arch-diocese of St Paul/Minneapolis through joint visits to project areas.
• Undertake regular reviews of the partnership between the two Arch/dioceses and between the Diocese of Kitui and CRS.

f. Who will participate in the program? (Use as many lines as years of your planned program)

Table 3: Program communities, participants and overall beneficiaries

g. How will all individuals in your population be impacted in progressing to a food-secure future? Please describe gender, ethnic or other specific characteristics as may apply to your situation.
Rainfall is low and erratic in the semi-arid Mwingi district and consequently the farm families are not able to produce adequate food to meet their household needs and rarely produce surplus food for sale to get cash income to meet their other immediate needs including health and education of their children. The other factor is inadequate knowledge in best agricultural production practices.  This project aims at harvesting runoff water from rains that normally fall in heavy storms during the rainy season for a short period but do not continue for long enough time to realize a good crop harvest.   Five earth /sand dams that will be constructed over the five year period will improve the communities’ access to water for livestock, vegetable growing and improve access to clean drinking water.  The households in the villages where the earth/sand dams will be situated will be involved in soil and water conservation structures in their farms to ensure better yields and improve food availability and hence food security while ensuring a sustainable natural resource base. The project therefore intends to build the capacity of the vulnerable people to improve food security through rain water harvesting for irrigation and domestic use, soil and water conservation and development of agro-enterprises for income generation. The earth/sand dams will be constructed using a voucher for work strategy that will ensure that the participating communities get returns for their labour and use cash earned to meet their basic needs and also build up their assets for improved livelihood. The project will encourage targeted households to utilize compost in filled up Arbo Loo toilet pits by planting fruit trees such as mangoes, pawpaw or banana and pumpkins to improve their nutrition and cash income through production, utilization and sale of fruits. 

The project will be market oriented and will use a rural agro-enterprise development approach mainly focusing on key value chains that include green grams, high value fruits, that is, mangoes and pawpaws that will be produced in the conserved areas. Vegetables will be produced next to the water facilities under improved but simple and affordable drip irrigation systems developed by Kenya Agricultural Research Institute’s irrigation and drainage unit.  The project will undertake comprehensive market chain analysis of all the value chains selected and strive to improve their competitiveness.  The project will build the capacity of farmers to market surplus produce collectively thereby improving their incomes and livelihoods. The communities will be facilitated to include savings and lending in communities (SILC) activities that will ensure more cohesiveness and also act as insurance. The SILC activities will also create an avenue for investment and asset accumulation. Women are the engines of agricultural development in the rural areas and therefore the project target participants will be 60% women.

h. How will your program impact the well-being of children?
The burden of children especially the girl child walking long distances to access water will be lessened and thus give them decent living. The program will impact on the well being of children by improving their nutritional well-being through promotion of dual purpose crop enterprises that provide quality nutrition and cash income such as green grams, high value fruits like mangoes and pawpaws and vegetables.  The cash earned through sale of surplus farm produce will be used to meet basic needs such as health, education and clothing which benefit the whole farm family including children.

i. What are your indicators of success and how will you measure them? (Include one indicator that compares school attendance and performance of children of participant families annually with baseline data obtained before initiating the program.). The indicators of success are as shown in the monitoring and evaluation plan (Table 4) below.

Due to many difficulties facing communities in this region, children are sent by parents to fetch water, till land and perform other chores in the family which affect their school attendance. Also children accompany their caretakers away from home in such of casual work to supplement the family income. This project will support households to work in their farms through the voucher for work strategy and hence reduce the necessity of caretakers traveling away from home in search of casual work. Parents will now concentrate on their farms without necessarily having to do wage labour away from home and the reduction of the need for children to fetch water and attend to farms will contribute to school attendance.