ifoam'96 Book of Abstracts 11th IFOAM Scientific Conference 11-15 August 1996, Copenhagen, Denmark

ECOWEB FRONT PAGE SUBJECT INDEX AUTHOR INDEX

Posters

Secondary Schools and Farming. P1; 91

Muruguru Secondary School, P. O. Box 821, Nyeri, Kenya

The aim is to encourage Young Farmers' Club in Secondary Schools to start organic gardens in the plots allocated to them. By doing so, the studens will acquire practical organic farming skills and participate in the conversion of the environment.
Our Young Farmers' Club which has 57 menbers started a 0.4 ha organic garden in Sept 1994. The garden is now divided into small portions which demonstrate the various organic farming techniques, namely:
1) Soil fertility maintenance, composting, intercropping, rotation of crops and agroforestry.
2) Soil and water conversation, terraces, cut-off drains using a flame, mulching and applying compost.
3) Crop husbandry, nursery establishment and management, planting techniques and crop protection.
Today our organic garden is a major attraction to various schools in the region. Tventyone clubs have responded by starting similar projects in their school. A new inter-school sharing of information on organics is in the pipeline.
It is important to note that although the school curriculum emphasises more on conventional agricultural practices, the students are inclined to accept organic farming as a veritable alternative. The poster discusses methods and prospects for encouraging inter-school sharing of scientific knowledge on organics at club's level for integration into sustainable agriculture. I hope that, first, students on leaving school will use imported knowledge and skills to help Kenya attain food self-sufficiency; second, third world countries will recognise and integrate organics in the agriculture syllabi.

Winrock International Environmental Alliance (July 1994): Pesticides and agrochemical industry in sub-sahara Africa, pp. 16-20.

Ecology and Farming, no. 5 (August 1993), pp. 16-21.