The CA-Hub Kenya promotes and advocate for farmers to transit to more resilient, sustainable and resource saving farming practices like conservation agriculture to build farmers resilience and enhance food security and nutrition aspects albeit climate change variabilities and impact. The Hub is intended to build synergies for wider and rapid scaling of CA through strong partnerships that ensures collective co-creation, learning and scaling of crop intensification and diversification under CA systems.
The Hub provides a platform to share experiences, raise awareness about CA, facilitate interactions among the various practitioners and contribute to enhancing the promotion and adoption of CA as a way to farm productively, improve resilience in the ecosystems, and optimize both short and long term productive-ability of the land-water systems.
Strategically, CA Hub-Kenya network aims to create CA Champions, increase the area under CA as adopted by farmers, enhance the embracing and integration of CA in county policy frameworks, raise finances and investment in CA by the public and private sector and build a vibrant CA community of practice. To achieve these targets, the Hub is focused on the following strategic Areas:
A. Delivering CA at Scale
The impact of CA can empirically be measured by the extent of adoption, acreage covered and livelihoods transformed. Thus, delivering CA at scale forms the basis for advocacy hence a critical component of the Hub. CA as a Community-based adaptation to climate change means community-led CA processes based on communities’ priorities, needs, knowledge, and capacities, which should empower people to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change.
B. Research and Capacity Strengthening
Africa’s agriculture is in great need of reform to minimize and eventually eliminate land degradation, improve yields per unit area, reduce the drudgery especially for smallholder farmers, sustain productivity and profitability and enhance environmental conservation. This strategic area aims at developing the capacity for innovations of the millions of smallholder farmers whose traditional practices (even where effective) are largely ignored or underrepresented. Research and capacity strengthening will be accomplished through awareness creation, advocacy, participation in CA related conferences and meetings, setting up demonstration/ institution sites in institutions that offer short CA training courses, establishment of the CA Centre of Excellence (CoE) at KALRO Njoro.
C. Partnerships, Advocacy and Policy
The mainstreaming and scaling of CA to national policies, frameworks and programmes requires the scientific evidence to convince the buy-in of policy makes and investors. Collective and concerted efforts are needed give voice to individuals and groups whose concerns and interests are not being heard in the advocacy for policy change to mainstream CA. This strategic area will be delivered by undertaking the following activities: mapping and linking different stakeholders, development of CA courses for various training institutions and agents, collectively advocate for CA mainstreaming in training institutions and extension systems.
D. Communication and Visibility
The communication and visibility strategic area aims at promoting and communicating the efforts and results of the CA-Kenya Hub. The Strategic Area will focus on: Development of the CA-Hub Kenya portal; Systematic creation, acquisition and documentation of CA Technologies, Inputs, Practices and Services (TIPS) relevant to opportunities and constraints; Development of CA knowledge & information (K&I) sharing products; Enhanced digital communication channels with targeted influencers; Media relations (forums, press briefings, events], and communication Toolkit (A to Z of CA).
E. Resource Mobilization/Financing for CA
The goal of this Strategic Area is to raise resources for the CA hub in its entirety. The resources are to support the CA Hub Secretariat- as convener and the partners’ initiatives through joint CA projects and activities.