In 2022, my team and I set out to discover solutions to address the challenges that communities and wildlife face as they share resources within the Mara landscape. The coexistence project has now achieved a new milestone; working with 5 communities which represent 120 farmers and 5 acres of farmland to grow and sell elephant-friendly crops.
I recently visited one such farm managed by the Ormeoshi community. They’ve committed 1/3 of their total farm acreage to grow rosemary. Planted in May, the rosemary is not only healthy but low maintenance as it deters crop raiding wildlife and requires little water. Their rosemary will be ready for harvest in early 2026 and I’m anxious to report back on the returns we’re able to help them secure from local natural oil processors.
Beyond crop health checks, I’m also visiting each participating farm twice quarterly to conduct training sessions with members of the community. The group of women from the Ormeoshi community received an hour-long training on entrepreneurship which highlighted the keys to successfully selling the extra produce created from the kitchen gardens MEP supported. These women have each received their own fruit and vegetable seedlings that were grown on the MEP farm and training on planting and maintaining a kitchen garden. Theirs are now thriving and they are interested in earning an income from the extra produce. I took them through how best to sell the produce, store it and build relationships with customers to increase sales.
Later that day, this same group of women helped me and the MEP team distribute almost 10,000 vegetable seedlings to over 100 of their fellow female community members who traveled from all over the area for the opportunity. The cabbage, sukuma, spinach and African nightshade seedlings were grown on the MEP farm and were distributed alongside a tutorial on how to plant and care for them and their nutritional values. Very soon I hope to see market days filled with the women we’ve trained selling nutrient rich, elephant friendly produce.
MEP continues to perfect cultivating elephant-friendly crops and develop relationships with consumers interested in purchasing them. At the MEP farm, we recently harvested a total of 3,740 kg (8,200 lbs.) of rosemary and eucalyptus which was processed by a local natural oil company in the Mara that has international distribution. They pay us for the crops, which then funds additional activities for the participating farmers. We’re exploring the pros and cons of bringing some of these processing activities in house especially for the abundant chili crops we have available, which can be easily ground down into chili powder and sold.
As we make strides toward achieving our goal of promoting coexistence across the Mara, your support of these community development activities creates a solid foundation for increasing the impact of this project for years to come.
