These techniques involve “double digging” the soil to a depth of 24 inches, optimal spacing of plants, and use of locally-available manures and/or composts, among other practices. Use of such methods is spreading in Kenya, extended particularly through and by self-help groups. As many as 200,000 households are using some combination of biointensive methods. According to a report from the University of Essex, a survey of 26 communities in eight districts found that 75 percent of households are now free from hunger during the year, and the proportion of households buying vegetables has fallen from 85 percent to 11 percent.(1)

Double-digging curtails water loss by eliminating the hard pan usually found in cultivated soils. This inexpensive and organic agriculture may soon change the prevailing concept that “larger is better” in terms of size of landholding (if it has not done so already). It could lead to widespread intensification of the existing land units with greater yields than the Green Revolution’s chemical-driven agriculture has produced. I believe that these agricultural techniques will play a role in enlarging the existing land units, albeit vertically as opposed to horizontally, as is usually the case. This is an inexpensive undertaking compared to buying more land, which most smallholder farmers cannot afford to do anyway. The intensified production is the equivalent of expanded acreage.

Most farmers practicing biointensive agriculture whom I visited earlier this year said that they no longer had to use purchased fertilizers or pesticides to grow their food crops. This had not only increased their yields with locally available inputs, but also led to healthier lives. The use of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides in the past had usually made them ill, and they were glad to forgo these inputs. They replaced purchased agrochemicals with homemade plant-based alternatives at first, but even these they eventually learned could be done away with, and plants’ protection could be left to natural processes without adversely affecting yields.

Insects previously unimportant to these farmers have now become beneficial to them and are protected rather than killed indiscriminately, as was the case in the past. Parasitic wasps, spiders, and ladybug beetles are now prevalent in their gardens, and birds are now coming back after a long absence. This sounds idyllic, but farmers themselves observed and commented on these changes.

My research at Manor House Agricultural Center looked at the effects of biointensive agricultural methods as well as of homemade plant-based pesticides. Of specific interest were double-digging and biointensive spacing versus conventional practices, and homemade plant-based pesticides versus no use of pesticides. Results of this experiment showed significant increases in yields with biointensive agriculture.