Kenya - Solidaridad

This project aims to support farmers in achieving sustainable livelihoods and engaging in sustainable supply chain activities. As weather events grow more severe and more frequent (such as droughts, floods, and even locusts), climate change continues to pose a challenge for the region.

Through existing projects, communities were invited to consider the adoption of trees on their farms for multiple benefits, carbon sequestration being one of them. Farmers’ needs were assessed to determine tree species preferences and to match species to sites, reaching approximately 3000 farmers for 3 months of training and subsequent routine checks and follow-ups.

• Project summary ADD PDF (version September 2023)

The project area is subject to poverty in line with national averages but sees gender inequality when it comes to education level, as girls usually drop out earlier due to stigmas such as a lack of sanitary pads during menstruation or early pregnancy. Other factors are the remoteness of the area, which can mean a lack of electricity, information, internet, phone network, safe drinking water, and so on. It also means there is little access to roads, health care, and schools. These challenges are exacerbated by a gradual increase in population growth and subsequent increasing demand for food and natural resources.

With coffee being the region's main crop, coffee pests and diseases pose a serious risk. Beyond that, low coffee prices and low yield impact farmers: these are low mostly due to the quality of coffee produced, as farmers need to build the capacity for effective post-harvest handling techniques and crops suffer from soil erosion and leaching of minerals, resulting from poor conservation agricultural practices and poor climate-smart agriculture practices (CSA). However, communities have now been trained on CSA. Being aware of the impacts of climate change, they are eager to overcome and reverse these trends.

Agroforestry is a well-suited approach to do this, and would also ensure communities have access to more and more varied food sources, like fruits from the fruit trees planted and other tree-based products such as nuts. The increase in revenue from coffee yield and carbon credits will allow more money to be spent on nutritious food for the family. The generated carbon credits will enable participants to improve their livelihoods and afford the maintenance of their farms, education, food, and to have stability in times of financial and economic struggles, all while enhancing the participation and shared decision-making of women along the agroforestry and coffee value chain.

The carbon credits farmers receive for the trees planted as part of the project are ex-post based. They will only be derived from one year before CRU issuance.

Full project documentation available upon request.