Farmers in Kisumu and Kitale in western Kenya - who became the first to Africans to earn carbon credits as a result of adapting farming practices to sequester more carbon in the soil – will now benefit from a new field manual on managing sustainable agriculture and land management (SALM) activities.

The blog of the Landscapes for People, Food and Nature initiative explains how the manual has been developed by project managers to train community facilities and hopefully also community resource people.

The overall aim is to increase the number of farmers in Kitale and Kisumu who are engaged in practices such as tree planting, using crop residues for mulching and composting, manure application, water harvesting and terracing to help buffer them from climate variability while increasing farm yields and sequestering carbon in the soil.

Research on the project conducted by EcoAgriculture Partners, in partnership with the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) has demonstrated the need for building capacity among local institutions to increase long-term development benefits and reduce costs.

The new manual will initially be used by the Swedish NGO Vi Agroforestry which is implementing the Kenya Agricultural Carbon project.

Read the full story: Kenyan Farmers’ Soil Carbon Sequestration Builds Resilience to Climate Change