[Sdpg] Friday/July 11 Sustainable World Radio Interview with Peter Murage, Permaculturist/Founder of Mt. Kenya Organic Farming (MOOF) Africa KCSB 91.9fm, 9-10am streaming live

Wed Jul 9 07:42:37 PDT 2008

Sustainable World Radio: Friday mornings at 9-10 
am PST on KCSB 91.9 FM in Santa Barbara, 
California and streaming live on www.kcsb.org. 
Program will be posted later 
on   www.sustainableworldradio.com, or www.radio4all.net

Join Jill Cloutier of Sustainable World Radio on 
Friday July 11, for an interview  with Peter 
Murage founder and Director of Mount Kenya 
Organic Farming (MOOF).  Peter is a Permaculture 
teacher and designer who founded the (NGO) MOOF 
in 1999, after taking a Permaculture Design 
course in England with Patrick Whitefield.  MOOF 
is a farm and demonstration/training center for 
smallholder farmers, located near Nanyuki, Kenya 
on western slope of Mount Kenya. The MOOF Center 
was designed as a Permaculture Design Diploma 
Project and was initiated during a severe drought that lasted from 1997-2002.

Also joining Jill in the studio will be Wes Roe 
and Margie Bushman of the Santa Barbara 
Permaculture Network, who first met Peter Murage 
while in Brazil for the 8th International 
Permaculture Conference (IPC8).  Peter was one of 
a delegation of Africans attending the conference 
who made a successful bid to have the next 
International Permaculture Conference held in 
Africa in 2009 (IPC9, www.ipc9.org).

More Information:

Around 3.3 Million people were at risk of 
starvation during year 2000 drought in Kenya. Yet 
those adopting some organic methods like soil 
management practices which help to retain 
moisture had a greater success story for their 
crops. This increased MOOF determination to train 
farmers in food self sufficiency through organic 
agriculture and simple methods of water and soil conservation.

Peter has been among the first black Kenyans to 
facilitate smallholder farmers group to undergo 
international group organic certification with an 
international certification body. He has 
participated in formulating the East African 
Organic Standards, OSEA launched May 2007. The 
main emphasis of MOOF Programme is the 
facilitation of smallholder producer groups in 
the production of enough food for themselves and 
the community and production and marketing of 
specialty high value certified organic products. 
MOOF’s main goal is to “Tackle Poverty among 
Smallholder Farmers through Organic Trade”.

To help support MOOF with donations and more contact:
Mr. Peter Murage
Programme Director,
Mount Kenya Organic Farming ( MOOF.AFRICA)
P.O. Box 1053-10400, Nanyuki  Kenya.
Cell: +254-733664103
Office: +254- 6231187
Email: moofafrica at todays.co.ke

ARTICLES ON MOOF:

To get a deeper understanding of the amazing work 
with rural communities on western slopes of Mt Kenya

TACKLING POVERTY AND FOOD INSECURITY AMONG
SMALLHOLDER FARMERS THROUGH ORGANIC TRADE

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:o9-Ym-yiPeMJ:www.unep-unctad.org/cbtf/events/arusha/MOOF%2520Africa.pdf+MOOF+Kenya&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us

Paper Presented during the Regional Workshop on “ 
Promotion production and trading ,
opportunities for Organic Agriculture production 
in East Africa” 6th9th March 2006
ARUSHA- TANZANIA

LOCAL ADAPTATION STRATEGIES ON CLIMATE CHANGE
(KIENI- EAST-KENYA) MOUNT KENYA ORGANIC FARMING 
(MOOF.AFRICA) IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BOTH ENDS

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:as8XsePF1kYJ:www.bothends.org/service/casestudy_MOOF.pdf+MOOF+Kenya&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us

EarthOil Project:

Earthoil’s African arm  Earthoil Kenya, 
http://www.earthoil.com/3398 in partnership with 
MOOF AFRICA (Mount Kenya Organic Farming) is 
working with smallholder farmers in the Nanyuki 
region of Kenya to help in the production of 
various high-value organic horticultural crops. 
MOOF AFRICA is a non-profit making national NGO, 
which seeks to promote the acceptance and 
implementation of sustainable, external low input 
farming systems. They do this through result 
oriented training, on-farm research and 
interactive participation of smallholder farmers 
 in the process highlighting these methods as 
viable options in increasing food production and 
alleviating poverty among the resource poor 
smallholder farmers in the rural areas of Kenya.

Earthoil plans to start with a pilot smallholder 
farmer group  ensuring they receive effective 
supervision and monitoring. This group is then 
proposed to initially expand to 400 farmers - 
each with 1 acre in which various high value 
organic oil crops - borage, high-oleic safflower, 
evening primrose and moringa - will be grown. The 
crops will be irrigated through the farmers’ 
access to perennial rivers whose source is the 
Mount Kenya watershed. Once harvested, these 
seeds will then be sold to Earthoil at a fair and 
sustainable price, for processing.

The targeted total acreage under organic crop 
production will be 400 acres. This will gradually 
increase to involve more smallholder farmers and 
organic producer groups in the Nanyuki region to 
target 2000 smallholder farmers  and later 8000 
smallholder farmers - as the project expands to 
cover more districts in the Mount Kenya region.

  -end-

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