Chura Village, located on the outskirts of Nairobi in Kiambu District, has a population of about 10,000. Despite close proximity to the mammoth Nairobi market, these peri-urban farmers had for years had a very personal relationship with hunger.

A growing population, land sub-division and a decline in soil fertility had progressively reduced their farm yields, sometimes leaving them with no food for months every year. The local Rotary Club frequently provided food assistance to bridge the food shortfalls.
Most able-bodied men had migrated to the city leaving women to tend to the vegetables. The community grows maize and leafy vegetables. Banana production had fallen from 136 hectares in 2002 to 117 hectares in 2004 due to pests and disease. Farmers had dismissed banana as a space-taking, low-yielding, non-profitable venture.
On request from Rotary, Africa Harvest developed a tissue culture banana promotion project for the impoverished Chura community to combat hunger and poverty.

Objectives
Promote sustainable rural community development by alleviating hunger and poverty by:-
1. Increasing banana production by increasing Chura farmers’ access to tissue culture banana plantlets
2. Help farmers to organise themselves so that they could better access knowledge, plantlets and other inputs required to turn around banana production in the area
3. Remove barriers in the banana marketing chain and create an organised sustainable banana marketing system that would enhance farmers’ access to markets
4. Equip farmer banana grower groups and marketing associations with skills on banana production and marketing for sustainability

Results
• More than 3,700 farmers took up banana production planting close to 71,000 tissue culture plantlets on some 42.5 hectares of land
• 145 farmer groups were formed each with own revolving credit fund for helping member buy tissue culture plantlets
• Three satellite tissue culture plantlets with a capacity of 5,000 were established to increase availability and accessibility of quality planting materials
• Subsidized banana tissue culture plantlets were availed to farmers
• 135 demonstration sites were set up on local farms in the village to build awareness and educate prospective adopters on how to manage tissue culture to maximise yields
• 105 farmers were as tissue culture banana trainers to provide the community with support at a fee
• A farmer-owned marketing company, Tee Cee Banana Enterprises Ltd - TCBEL, was formed to handle the marketing issues. The company has set up seven banana collection and bulking centres. It is involved in post-harvest handling and grading, ripening and warehousing, transportation to market, and setting industry standards.

Spill-over Benefits
Africa Harvest has benefited from a variety of capacity strengthening trainings, which have in turn increased staff effectiveness in empowering farmers to become better banana producers. The trainings, delivered by various private and public sector partners, including Farming as a Business; Post-harvest and quality enhancement of commercial bananas; Banana value-addition and solar drying; Commoditization of the banana; and Horticultural competitiveness.