Farm hands, from afar: Kit Goldfarb is linking Rappahannock to Kenya one village at a time with the help of local donors

Linking Rappahannock County to Kenya’s equatorial countryside, local resident Kit Goldfarb’s sustainable agriculture nonprofit continues to grow in part with the help of donations from county residents.

SANGO-Kenya was founded in 2020 by Goldfarb, the executive director, and Dr. Constance Gewa, director of programs and research, to concentrate on sustainable agriculture, nutrition and growth opportunities. Thus, the acronym: SANGO.

The pair met while Goldfarb was studying global health in underdeveloped nations at George Mason University where Gewa works as an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies.

Eventually, the duo combined their expertise with a mission to alleviate food insecurity in the Seme sub-county of southwestern Kenya, located in Kisumu County along the east bank of Lake Victoria. (Food insecurity refers to the availability of food and accessibility to it.)

“Our focus is on sustainable food security, focusing on training and providing technical support for smallholder women farmers,” says Goldfarb.

Smallholder farms are classified as less than five acres. The organization provides on-site education and support for local smallholder farmers with a focus on nutrition and cultivating traditional African produce grown sustainably.

It all started in 2017 when Gewa, a native of Kisumu County, began conducting research on food insecurity in the area involving pregnant or lactating mothers. Her findings showed that approximately 60% of households in Seme sub-county were affected by food insecurity, year-round.

The region’s arid climate and sandy soils in more than 4,000 feet of elevation, coupled with increasingly sporadic rains brought on by climate change in recent years, have presented new challenges for growers in the area that have contributed to food insecurity, Goldfarb said.

In 2020, Goldfarb and Gewa returned to Kenya and began working in tandem with Kenya’s Ministry of Health and Ministry of Agriculture to get their program off and running. SANGO-Kenya works jointly with officers from the two ministries who provide in-class training and field support for farmers involved with the program.

In Kenyan culture, tending to the household farm has traditionally been a woman’s role, Gewa said. The nonprofit’s original mission took a 1,000-day approach — a focus on the first 1,000 days of life, from a farming woman’s pregnancy through the first 24 months of her child’s life. Nutrition in this time period, Gewa said, is critical for a child’s development throughout life. She noted that a hindrance on human development can negatively impact levels of health and education in communities.

“It addresses much more than just health and nutrition, but also the overall welfare of mothers and the communities they’re living in,” said Gewa.

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SANGO-Kenya’s pilot program began with 19 women in one village but has since grown to include three villages and 130 women smallholder farmers. The nonprofit is not strictly directed toward women farmers; however, communities as a whole have expressed increased interest in SANGO-Kenya’s mission.

“We’ve seen a lot of support coming in from the male members of the community,” said Gewa. “They’re even coming in for [training] sessions if their wives cannot make it.”

Not long after the program’s initiation, a community event held by SANGO-Kenya drew a crowd of more than 100 individuals. Goldfarb and Gewa did not expect such immediate interest.

“What we found is that people were seeing our farmers’ crops so more and more people wanted to join the program,” said Goldfarb.

With increased growth came the necessity for additional funding. Goldfarb says contributions from Rappahannock residents have been a driving force in the nonprofit’s success.

“People in Rappahannock have been very generous and instrumental and very helpful because there are people here who are really interested and have experience in what we’re doing,” says Goldfarb. “Rappahannock County has actually been critical to our establishment.”

To get the word out, Goldfarb releases newsletters and has conducted virtual presentations on the program’s impact overseas.

She says some of her acquaintances from Rappahannock were among the first donors, which helped kick-start the nonprofit’s pilot programs. In the last year, approximately 35 residents in the county have donated to the organization.

Since the birth of SANGO-Kenya, both Goldfarb and Gewa say the response from the communities involved has been outstanding and the support and interest from locals continues to grow.

“The people really believe in what we’re doing,” says Goldfarb. “And they believe it because they’re doing it themselves.”

The hands-on learning approach places a significance on sustainability. The program has helped farmers convert to natural forms of fertilizer, determine which vegetables grow best in the challenging climate, harvest seeds to plant in the subsequent growing season and has started to introduce water irrigation practices.

The program’s sustainable approach applies not only to the farming techniques it teaches, but also to its long-term goals as an organization.

“It’s sustainability from an environmental perspective,” said Goldfarb. “But also sustainability from a perspective that we don’t introduce anything that the farmers can’t continue themselves.”

SANGO-Kenya has more than doubled the number of farmers enrolled in its program each year. Goldfarb says she anticipates that this trend will continue and expand to new communities within Seme-sub county’s 121,667 population. She hopes the training sessions can inspire similar practices to alleviate food insecurity in other parts of the world.

“These challenges are not unique to where we work,” Goldfarb said.

How to help: To find out more about the SANGO-Kenya and for donation information, go to the organization’s website.