Nature Positive Food Systems for Climate Change Adaptation (Nature+) is a Foodgrains Bank program to scale up nature-based solutions, enhance climate-resilient livelihoods, and enable women and other vulnerable people in communities—and their landscapes— to adapt to climate change.
As one of the projects in the Nature+ program, Mennonite Central Committee Canada is supporting Utooni Development Organization (UDO) with a three-year agriculture and livelihoods project in the Kikumbulyu North, Kibwezi West, Makueni County, Kenya.
As a result of climate change, biodiversity loss, and land degradation, the communities of the Kikumbulyu North landscape continue to face issues of food insecurity, lack of livestock pasture, soil fertility loss, loss of livelihoods, inaccessibility to water facilities, soil erosion, and poverty.
In response to these issues, UDO will strengthen the practice of conservation agriculture, engage in agroforestry, introduce drought tolerant/traditional high value crops, and implement farmer managed natural regeneration and enrichment planting activities. Water management will be improved through gully rehabilitation, soil and water conservation, rainwater harvesting methods and the construction of earth pans, farm ponds, gabion, and a rock catchment. Livestock and range management will be enhanced through rotational grazing, animal health management, local and indigenous breeding diversified livestock systems, and improved feed management. The inclusion and empowerment of women and other vulnerable groups will be a focus in all these activities.
UDO aims to work with 4,510 participants from 2,635 households with a total of 16,605 people reached.