The project responds to the alarming environmental degradation and falling agricultural productivity affecting entrepreneurs in Kenya. With nearly 70% of Hand in Hands members working on farms, environmental sustainability is an essential contributor to supporting enterprise survival and improved livelihoods. Our vision is to be able to promote profitable enterprises while also supporting a healthy environmental ecosystem.

The 3 year project will help HIHEA achieve our vision by building up the resources, skills and tools we need to successfully integrate regenerative agriculture and circular economies into our enterprise creation model. It will introduce advocacy into our work, in that we will build the skills of grassroots actors to articulate the change needed to protect vital natural resources, and facilitate spaces where these actors can influence local government and businesses to support that change.

The project consists of 3 stages:

Stage 1 will equip HIHEA with a clear approach for introducing regenerative agriculture and circularity in target communities.

Stage 2 will allow HIHEA to validate this approach with 1,600 members, applying the strategy and training tools in practice and assessing which aspects are more effective.

Stage 3 will lay the groundwork for awareness raising and advocacy by testing a new curriculum with community-based organizations representing HIHEA members, aiming to equip them to directly advocate for improved natural resource management.

This project will be field tested on two locations, two demo farms in Busia and Bomet. The farms will apply regenerative and circular principles and double up as training centres. They will be developed together with HIHEA communities and members and provide a place to observe and try out different CERA practices. Farmers will benefit from observing how regenerative farms are designed and where circularity can offer tangible environmental and financial benefits in the short, medium and long term.

Groups of 15-30 members will visit the farms once a month to allow them to observe how the CERA approach evolved. The demo farms will serve as a space to observe and experiment with regenerative techniques and approaches relevant to farmers’ agricultural specialism and context. Farmers will then test techniques and approaches on their own farms.

Specific CERA practices applied will include kitchen gardens making use of materials/inputs available at farm level, community tree nurseries to provide seedlings to farmers for land regeneration.