admin | October 7, 2025
News Brief
Under the scorching sun, Salina Chepsat loads crates of tomatoes for Marigat market, 30 kilometres away. The 49-year-old widow from Loboi, Kenya, relies on her one-hectare farm to generate income and build her new house. Trained by the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative, she uses compost and organic pest control to grow tomatoes, spinach, beans, and more. With a solar-powered borehole, her farm provides year-round water. Mrs. Chepsat says, “Even with degraded land, we can restore it for crops and pasture,” showing how women farmers thrive despite drought and challenging conditions.
Under the scorching midday sun, Salina Chepsat loads crates of ripe tomatoes into a vehicle bound for Marigat market, 30 kilometres away. For the 49-year-old widow and mother of three, this season’s harvest is more than just food. It is income she plans to use to finish building her new house.
She says, “When I settled here, I was mainly planting maize, beans, and millet. Although I earned income, it wasn’t enough to build a good house. Unpredictable rainfall has been a limiting factor, especially for maize.”
Mrs. Chepsat lives in Loboi, a remote village near Lake Bogoria in Kenya’s semiarid Baringo County. Her community faces repeated droughts, degraded land, and conflict over scarce resources. But despite these challenges, she is prospering as a farmer.
Her success is rooted in training she received from the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative (IWGI), a local organization that supports women farmers. The group trains women to establish seed banks, create kitchen gardens, and plant trees. It also teaches them how to make organic pesticides and compost.
Mrs. Chepsat now enriches her soil with compost made from goat droppings, weeds, and household waste. To protect her vegetables from whiteflies, she applies a paste made from ash and chili. She says, “When I harvest food from my farm, I am confident that what I am eating is safe. My farming is purely organic.”
She grows tomatoes, spinach, chili peppers, beans, bananas, maize, millet, and sorghum on the one-hectare plot she bought five years ago. Thanks to a borehole with a solar pump drilled by an NGO on her farm, she and her neighbours also have year-round access to water.
For IWGI founder Monica Yator, this kind of farming is essential. She says,“The use of pesticides has been rampant in many farms around here. We are telling farmers to avoid them because they are a risk to health and soils.”
Mrs. Yator says her initiative encourages women from Indigenous communities like the Endorois, Ilchamus, and Tugen to use permaculture techniques. These practices help farmers cope with drought and poor soils, while reducing dependence on livestock alone.
Mrs. Chepsat agrees. She says, “We have to make good use of our farms. Even with degraded land, we can restore it for crops and pasture.”
Photo: Alongside staples like maize and sorghum, Salina Chepsat grows lucrative produce like tomatoes, spinach, bananas, and passion fruit her small farm. Image by Gilbert Nakweya for Mongabay.
This story is based on an article written by Gilbert Nakweya for Mongabay, titled “Permaculture promises peace, food, increased equality in Kenyan county.” To read the full story, go to : https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/