Innovations in organic resource management: experiences from Kenya's Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies

Abstract

There are two alternative paths for humanity and the environment, and man's actions over the next few years will determine which path is taken. In one future, agricultural landscapes become depleted by an overpopulation of desperate peasant farmers, many of whom are forced to migrate to cities, only to discover garbage, crowded slums and squalor. But in the other more optimistic scenario, smallholders practise environmentally responsible, market-oriented agriculture resulting in rural prosperity and a flow of goods to clean, vibrant urban areas. The Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies (FORMAT) is assisting Kenyans to pursue the second path, one in which organic resources in the countryside and cities alike are being creatively recycled and profitably processed.