OUR THEMATIC AREAS
Agro ecology and food Security
This is aimed at equipping the smallholder farming community including young farmers with the ability to be self-reliant and food/ nutrition secured in an ecologically sound way, and where possible to produce surplus and add value for effective marketing.
School gardening and life skills
COSDEP runs farming activities in primary and secondary schools as a way of nurturing future young farmers as well as influencing them positively towards agriculture as a career. It also enables these young people to experiment what they learn at home during the holidays. The project also doubles as a display point for the concepts we stand for to the farming community around the schools where the farmers participate during some learning events and take home the lessons for improving their own practices in their homes.
Youth entrepreneurship and Market Development
COSDEP acknowledges that many youths from needy families usually drop-out of school. Others are unable to continue after completing these early stages of their education. This hinders them from acquiring technical or professional skills that would enable them become self-reliant. We target working with these youths by focusing on initiatives that can offer life skills that they can apply to either secure employment or become self-reliant.
Organizational Development, Networking and Partnerships
An organization’s capacity to access and share information is very vital for its growth. COSDEP is a member of different networks which are like-minded including Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM), Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (KOAN), Schools and Colleges Permaculture programme (SCOPE Kenya), HAND IN HAND, STAY ALLIANCE. COSDEP also recognizes the need to continue growing steadily and therefore endeavors to put more effort in organizational development. Gradual growth guarantees stability and some level of certainty and strong understanding of the issues that we deal with in order to remain relevant and focused.
PROGRAMS
COSDEP works with small scale farmers in Kiambu and Murang’a, Counties. From our research, we found that many smallholder farmers fail to yield adequate crops due to lack of farming skills. In our effort to empower the smallholder farmers, we encourage them to grow crops that are nutritious in order to curb malnutrition challenges by training them on the importance of diversification. We are committed to help these farmers improve their agricultural skills in order to increase their food production through:
SUSTAINABLE ORGANIC FARMING TRAINING (SOFT)
COSDEP offers trainings services to small holder farmers on organic farming thus advocating for sound ecological farming techniques. We let our beneficiaries understand that it is now a global need for human beings to get involved in life activities that promotes environmental sustainability. This is because in agriculture organic farming approach is the only way for attaining a green environment. Unfortunately, most small holder farmers lack necessary skill, knowledge and information for organic farming yet they form the largest percentage of Kenya population. Therefore, we train our beneficiaries on various methods for sustainable organic agriculture.
COSDEP has also established a one-acre demonstration center where farmers come to learn the practice of farming like mushroom production, dairy farming, poultry and rabbit keeping, bio-gas technology and Ecological Agriculture techniques where different types of crops are grown. The center is also a source of income for the organization from the sale of manuals and farm produce. It also hosts university students both local and international who come to learn and practice their skills for a specific period of time depending on their institutions.
We focus on improving the environment by encouraging the communities to plant trees in their small farms. COSDEP has also established tree nurseries and agro-forestry at the demonstration center where farmers visit for learning purposes. As a way of curbing global warming, we promote use of energy conserving fireless cookers, bio gas systems and advocating for application of safe and environmentally friendly farming practices that applies the use and recycling of locally available resources.
ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION, AGRO-FORESTRY AND CLIMATE CHANGE
We focus on improving the environment by encouraging the communities to plant trees in their small farms. COSDEP has also established tree nurseries and agro-forestry at the demonstration center where farmers visit for learning purposes. As a way of curbing global warming, we promote use of energy conserving fireless cookers, bio gas systems and advocating for application of safe and environmentally friendly farming practices that applies the use and recycling of locally available resources.
SCHOOL ORGANIC FARMING (SOFA)
Under this program, COSDEP partners with learning institutions at primary, secondary and tertiary levels to enlighten the young population about organic agriculture as a normal career. In Kenya, youths undermine agriculture thus forming the root cause of the problems the country is facing. Agriculture is the backbone of the country yet youths are not aggressive to embrace the employment opportunities available in this industry. We realized that food insecurity, health complications due to nutritional deficiencies and misuse of natural resource is all because the young generation is not appreciating organic agriculture.
In this program we not only train and offer extension services, but rather we proved all necessary support including seed resources for young people interested to embrace organic agriculture. We also link the young people to opportunities in other fields to enable them establish the relationship between organic agriculture and other fields.
COSDEPs Demo farm and Income Generation
This has been another tool of reaching and assisting the farmers as they always had an opportunity to see and believe that ecological agriculture actually works. COSDEPs demonstration farm acts as a platform for interaction between COSDEP and other organizations working in different sectors.