The Green Economy; How It Includes You

The Arab spring to the Occupy movement…social unrest from economic catastrophes left the world aghast in 2011 leaving many to lose faith in the current market-based economy that is in itself a self destructing time bomb in terms of natural resources depletion and inequality among men. All hope is not to be lost my friends…the green economy offers solution to several of today’s problems both short term and long term.

Water Insecurity, A Crisis Ahead

100 years ago, planet earth was occupied by 1.5 billion people, today it’s crowded by 7 billion humans, all dependant on the finite resources that compliment our planet. Hold that thought; the same planet earth has one-third of it’s land mass under desert and the rates of desertification are growing fast. In Africa, the Sahara is reported to be increasing by up to 50 kilometers/30 miles a year, chewing up the Congo forest like nonsense and the Kalahari is also growing fast towards north and if these two deserts meet, we are doomed.

Think Green

At independence, Kenya’s forest cover stood at around 10% of her land mass, today, it’s a measly 1.2% according to the last official reports and this is alarming. Furthermore we lost our national hero and world renown treehugger, Prof Wangari Maathai, which is a cause for alarm since all most of our leaders don’t care about the environment and biodiversity.

The Famine in East Africa

Somalia has been in civil war for the last 20 years and counting, causing a major disruption of normal day life. Apart from the people who have been killed and injured in the battles, Somalia’s agriculture sector is literally on it’s death bed, unable to feed even a tenth of the 10 million population of Somalia. Fishing along the coast line has died largely due to toxic waste from passers-by and unscrupulous corporations and governments but that’s a blog post for another day, today is Blog Action Day (#BAD11) and since it coincided with world food day (#WorldFoodDay), the topic is FOOD, or in this case of East Africa the lack of it. 

Hydroponics, Aquaponics and Aeroponics

Climate change is a reality. At independence in 1963, Kenya’s forest cover was 10% of it’s land mass but now it’s a greasly 1.2% due to massive deforestation. This has had a huge effect in terms of our water tower and subsequently food security. Apart from the micro climate change, the globe as a whole is pumping out greenhouse gases that are significantly shifting climate and weather patterns all over the world.

Bamboo, Climate Change and Agribusiness

It is now official, everyone who owns a piece of land in Kenya is required by law to have at least 10% under forest cover in a bid to save the country’s water towers. Currently, the forest cover occupies 1.2% of Kenya’s land below the UN threshold of 10%. Farmers need to be innovative to meet this benchmark fast and at the same time we can profit from this initiative.

Coffee or Real Estate?

Sasini Ltd, a listed agricultural company at the Nairobi stock exchange, surprised everyone by announcing that they intend to turn a 1000 coffee plantation into real estate. This news flabbergasted the market causing the stock price to gain more than 23% on receipt of this news in the stock market the question remains why the excitement at the @NSEKenya.

Organic Farming Versus Conventional farming

This is perhaps the hottest debate in agriculture circles…organic or inorganic? First of all what is organic farming? Organic farming is the practice of agriculture without harming the land, water and people involved. It is the type of farming whereby you don’t use chemical fertilizers, herbicides rather natural and more conserving methods are adopted.