From Barren to Bountiful: How Kenyan Farmers Are Restoring Their Soils and Reclaiming Their Harvests

“I had never known that, like other living things, the soil is living and if it is sick, it can be taken to hospital and be treated,” says Agnes Barasa with a hearty laugh. Today, as she carefully tends the organic mulch beneath her lush green vegetables, the transformation of her small farm is visible and remarkable.

Just three years ago, her backyard in Maeni village, nestled in Kenya’s Kimilili sub-county, was dry and lifeless. There were no signs of the kale, beans, bananas or tomatoes that now flourish under her care. Since she moved to Maeni after her marriage over two decades ago, farming had been a struggle. Despite years of backbreaking work, Agnes’ family was often left without enough to eat. Her harvests were consistently poor and her household of five children faced frequent food shortages.

Agnes now looks at her land with new eyes and renewed confidence. She has enough corn, groundnuts and vegetables to feed her children and earn an income.

The change, she explains, began when she joined a training under the BOOST initiative, a project implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) together with the Government of Kenya and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and supported by funding from the European Union (EU).

Diagnosing a Silent Crisis: Dying Soils

For years, Agnes and her fellow farmers unknowingly practised methods that degraded their soil. One such practice was burning crop residues after harvest, a common method meant to clear land quickly but one that strips the soil of organic matter and disrupts its natural life.

“I am among the farmers that used to burn maize residue and dry vegetation in the fields, oblivious of the harm I was causing my soil,” she confesses.

According to Jimmy Mweri, FAO’s coordinator for the BOOST project, the real problem was not just declining yields. It was dying soils. Few farmers realised that soils, like humans, could suffer from malnutrition. Even fewer knew that technicians could diagnose their soils using portable scanning devices, revealing critical problems such as low phosphorus levels and high acidity.

Other harmful practices included turning the soil after every planting season, which left it bare and vulnerable to erosion, moisture loss and biodiversity depletion. Decades of monocropping, especially maize and sugarcane, compounded the damage. Like many others in the region, Agnes and her husband had initially planted sugarcane. But with delayed or meagre payments becoming the norm, they shifted to maize, unknowingly pushing the land further into distress.

A Boost of Knowledge and a Turnaround in Yields

Through the BOOST training, Agnes learned how to read the land, restore soil health and apply practices that allow the soil to breathe and regenerate. She stopped burning residues and instead began applying organic mulch and compost produced right on her farm. With this new approach, her yields improved dramatically.

This year, Agnes harvested 15 bags of maize from her long-rains crop, up from just three bags previously. The boost has not only provided food security for her family but also restored her trust in agriculture.

“I am a happy lady because my soil is yielding where it did not”

She attributes the turnaround to the combination of organic fertilisers, pest and disease control products and certified hybrid seeds introduced through the BOOST initiative. Importantly, she was also trained on how to use them properly. Techniques such as intercropping, crop rotation, Integrated Pest Management and post-harvest handling have been instrumental in sustaining her farm’s recovery.

From Beneficiary to Changemaker

Now an enthusiastic champion of agroecology, Agnes is sharing her knowledge with others in her village and neighbouring areas. She has become a trainer of farmers, encouraging them to stop destructive practices and adopt methods that restore the land’s vitality.

Her next goal is to expand her kitchen garden to grow more vegetables both for home consumption and for sale. She also hopes to harvest even more maize in the upcoming season.

Scaling Agroecology: Knowledge Hubs and Youth Empowerment

The BOOST initiative contributes directly to Kenya’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA), which prioritises increased agricultural productivity, food security and rural livelihoods. By restoring soil health, training farmers in sustainable methods and enabling youth-led agroecology hubs, BOOST supports the government’s goal to make farming more productive and resilient.

In villages like Maeni, this agenda is taking shape in practical ways—healthier soils, improved yields and more informed farmers. Through such efforts, BOOST is helping translate national policy into tangible progress on the ground.

Agnes' story is just one among many. In total, the BOOST initiative is reaching over 40,000 farmers across five counties in Kenya. Its aim is simple but urgent: to help farmers identify and address the root causes of poor production and restore their soil's health.

To support this mission, the project has established ten agroecology service hubs, serving as regional learning and service provision centres. These hubs are managed by youth trained through BOOST, creating valuable employment opportunities for young people, many of whom are fresh out of college.

At these centres, farmers receive zone-specific training and services such as land preparation, planting, irrigation, composting, agroforestry, pest control, harvesting and aggregation, all offered at accessible