Peninah Muthoni a woman farmer living in Karangadu village located in Kenya’s Tharaka Nithi county has managed to grow spinach, amarnath and other veggies in the arid landscape of Kenya.
This Amazing feat was only possible due to the use of the Bokashi fertilizer which helped nourish the crops in an otherwise dry landscape where even the Acacia Trees shed a lot of leaves just to retain water. Muthoni applied the skills she learned at a workshop hosted by the Resources Oriented Development Initiative (RODI Kenya) in three gardens near her house in Tharaka Nithi which helped her to understand how to utilize the Bokashi fertiliser, which is manufactured by fermenting organic waste to swiftly form a nutrient-rich compost, to help restore nutrients to depleted soils.
Currently, she is able to cultivate enough veggies for her three biological children and 11 foster children by combining sack gardens, buried basins, and creating bokashi. She claims to have a surplus for those in need.
According to a Kenyan official, “We carried out a survey across the country because we thought that our soils were becoming unproductive because they were too acidic, but we were shocked to find that what was majorly lacking was zinc and potassium,”
The most common reason for the depletion of nutrients in the soil is generally due to overuse, which occurs only when a field is repeatedly planted on without giving the land a break or using mixed cropping to replenish the nutrients of the soil. This in turn lets farmers completely extract out vital nutrients with each harvest without replacing them.
The easiest way to fix this is to just add chemical fertiliser however according to scientists this also will end up harming the microbes in the soil which are key in replenishing nutrients
This has, in turn, led to people turning to organic farming compost forming techniques like the Bokashi for help and it has surely yielded results.
