About

20.20 Kenyavision is a US-based initiative that has partnered with the Network for Ecofarming in Africa (NECOFA), located in Molo, Kenya. The purpose of the initiative is to recruit 20 groups, organizations and/or individuals to raise $1,000 each for ecofarming initiatives in Kenya – for a total of $20,000. NECOFA, which has been registered in Kenya as a community based NGO since 2002, promotes Ecofarming: Ecological and Socially Sustainable Land Management; its executive director is also the convivium leader for Slow Food Central Rift. Among other initiatives, NECOFA provides tools and training to Kenya schools and community-based organizations to support ecofarming activities and give students a comprehensive education in environmentally safe methods of food production. Trained students and organization leaders are then asked to train other community-based organizations in these methods. NECOFA believes that Kenyan farmers have been too dependent on others for their agricultural development, which led to food insecurity a loss of pride.

NECOFA Staff Members:

Samuel Muhunyu, Executive Director
Priscilla Nzamalu, Team Leader, Oversees progress on projects
John Wachira, Community Worker, Oversees progress on group projects, organic farming skills, response on HIV/AIDS awareness, marketing
David Chege, Agribusiness development, marketing, financial accounts
Peter Ndiruka, Agribusiness Manager, Training and community mobilization on: organic certification, gender equality, HIV/AIDS awareness, drug abuse/human rights
Alfred Waithaka, Crops Management

Partners and collaborators include:

• The Kenya Ministry of Agriculture
• Slow Food International (Italy)
• Baraka Agricultural College
• Kenya Organic Agriculture Network, KOAN
• Participatory Ecological Land Use Management, PELUM
• Friends of Kenya Schools and Wildlife (USA)
• Ugunja Community Resource Center
• Mau Community Forest Association, MACOFA
• Community Food and Environment Group, COFEG

Physical Address: Neema Plaza, 1st floor Molo town
Postal Address: P.O Box 819 Molo
Postal Code: 20106 Kenya
Telephone: +254 (051)721048
E-mail Address: necofakenya@yahoo.com

Name: Samuel Karanja Muhunyu
Position: Country Coordinator
Cell phone: +254 722 647112
E-mail: muhunyusk@yahoo.com

About Kenya

Kenya is a country that, according to IFAD, has one of the best-developed economies in Eastern Africa yet for the past 30 years poverty has been on the rise. In fact, the number of people living below the poverty line rose from 11 million (48% of the population) in 1990 to 20.1 million in 2005, translating to about 60% of the population (33 million). From distribution of poverty profiles taken in 2001, 82% of the nation’s poor were in rural areas. In Kenya, more than 50% of its GDP comes from agriculture and 80% of that comes from small scale farmers—a majority of whom farm as little as 1 acre of land or less.

Sadly, between 2000 and 2004 Kenya had one of the poorest records in agricultural development in Africa. With a 1.9% rate, it was one of 15 African countries with average annual agricultural development growth rates below 2% per year, and the rate was unchanged from what it had been between 1990 and 2000. As with most developing countries, agriculture’s share of overall economic development has declined over the years to about 24% today. Kenya’s percentage still puts it among the more agriculturally dependent countries on the continent.

According to the executive director of NECOFA Kenya, Samuel Muhunyu, NECOFA aims to embolden and empower victims of the countless dehumanizing experiences that Africans have suffered—namely the slave trade and post-independence mismanagement of the country’s resources, which resulted in disorganized, poor conditions—and develop good, clean and fair foods without dependence on foreign aid and foreign corporations.