Aidenvironment East Africa

26/11/2024

Invest in Your Soil: Healthy Soil Means Healthy Crops!

Did you know that the secret to thriving crops lies beneath our feet? Healthy soil is the foundation of sustainable farming, boosting productivity, resilience, and the environment.
Why prioritize soil health?
✅ Enhances crop yields and quality
✅ Improves water retention and reduces erosion
✅ Supports biodiversity and fights climate change
How to invest in your soil:
🔸 Use organic compost and natural fertilizers.
🔸 Practice crop rotation and cover cropping.
🔸 Minimize chemical usage and soil disturbance.
Healthy soil isn't just good for crops—it's essential for our planet's future. Let’s nurture it like the treasure it is! By integrating these strategies, we continue implementing the Harvesting Health project which seeks to create a resilient agricultural landscape and contribute to systemic change in food and nutrition practices in the Sebei region. Through the collaborative efforts of AidEnvironment, Food for the Hungry Association (FHA) and Kapchorwa Civil Society Organization Alliance (KACSOA), we shall utilize local knowledge and resources to improve health, productivity, and economic well-being for the targeted communities.

17/09/2024

WHAT do we actually DO when we RESTORE landscapes?
by AE General Director Anna Schoemakers.

I will give you an example of the work we do in Lwakhakha in the Eastern part of Uganda.

In a green and rolling landscape a road connects villages, in which there are mostly small-scale farmers. They grow a variety of crops, for example banana, groundnut, maize, cassava, coffee and fruits on their lands. And then - IMAGINE a deep crack in the landscape. And every time when it rains, the crack gets deeper and wider. After a while, it is not possible anymore to cross the crack with an ox, or motorbike, or with small agricultural machinery. These cracks in the landscape can develop because of a combination of drought and heavy rains, crops that do not root deep (maize f.e.), and livestock finding their way along the crack, trampling on plants.

AidEnvironment calls a crack in the landscape, a GULLEY.

Gulley treatment
AidEnvironment knows how to collaborate with communities AND with nature in restoring the gulleys. We call that Gulley treatment.

• First step is to engage with the community. Then together analyse the situation and to plan what to construct and what to plant to help nature restoring. Community members help out with planting and putting materials in place. This is heavy physical labour.
• Creating a stone bunch, small or large can be a solution. The rain will come into the gulley, creating a river, and move the sand and the earth. The stone bunch will stop the sand, but lets the water go through. The sand and the earth will sink before the stone bunch and fill up the gulley again. Plants will start to grow. And they grow fast! Hiding the stone bunch.

• Planting some specific kinds of grasses and trees can help. They hold the earth together.
• As well as making small scale constructions of piles of stones and planting specific kinds of shrubs to keep the water and bring it where needed.

The consequences of NOT restoring a gulley will lead to more and more rainwater running off, taking sand and earth and everything that grows in the flow elsewhere. Destroying farmers land, decreasing their yield and income. In the end, less will be available for daily meals, and less will go to the market for sale.

The whole process of gulley restoration leads to awareness and action from the community itself.

22/08/2024

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/aidenvironment_harvestinghealth-aidenvironment-foodforthehungry-activity-7232302321915887616-sKc0?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

🌿 Exciting News: Launch of Harvesting Health in Mount Elgon! 🌿 We have launched our new three-year project, Harvesting Health: Integrating Nutrition and…

02/08/2024

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