Farming in Africa is hard work. The continent lags behind in the adoption of modern technologies that can enable farmers improve food productivity and income. For a farmer to plough one acre of land using oxen he or she must walk an equivalent of 10km.

CORPORATE IDENTITY AND NICHE’

Vision of SACRED Africa

Empowered communities that are food secure with improved incomes in a well-conserved environment.

Mission Statement

To build a better Africa by facilitating increased and sustainable agricultural production, food security and incomes while conserving the environment.

Core Values

Statement of Beliefs

1. SACRED Africa believes that one of the most successful and lasting strategies of stemming poverty and famine in Africa is enabling people to manage their natural resources more efficiently, produce more food and earn income to support their families.
2. SACRED Africa further believes that achieving a sustainable balance between the need for food and income and environmental quality is the most effective approach towards improving living standards of the rural farmers in Africa, and ensuring resources for the future, committed to achieving long-term success not short-term solutions.
3. There are no simple quick fix solutions for complex problems that are ravaging Africa. The solutions are found in combined Participatory Community Development (PCD) and Sustainable Agriculture (SA) as well as helping the farmers to market their produce.
4. This organization beliefs that to help people attain the skills that are needed to shape and improve their future, SACRED Africa needs to work with those selfsame people in a genuine and true partnership.

Values

• We are committed and dedicated to serving communities to enable them improve their livelihoods and attain social sustainability.
• We believe that smallholder farmers possess important Indigenous Technical Knowledge (ITK) and skills, but also need modern innovative technologies to solve some of their problems.
• We are committed to lobbying and advocacy work on policies and legislation that will ensure food security, increased incomes and environmental conservation.
• We are committed to promoting functional collaboration and networking among all stakeholders involved in participatory and adaptive on-farm research and farmer-to-farmer extension learning as viable approaches in sustainable agriculture. Besides, all that stakeholders require is to share development experiences, problems, challenges and breakthroughs.
• We are committed to ensuring capacity building of our human resource base and financial stability with accountable and transparent policies, procedures and systems of governance as well as effective resource management.
• We are a non-partisan, non-profit making and non-religious community focused organization serving the priority felt needs of diverse communities without any discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity and nationality.

Beliefs about the Smallholder Farmers’ Potential

The SACRED Africa Board of Trustees and Staff members at their Nairobi Office (L-R ,standing) Lucia Koskei, Richard Walukano, Dr Reginalda Wanyonyi, Boniface Wanyonyi, Dr Stella Wasike, Dr. Eusebius Mukhwana and Connie Nyongesa (L-R Sitting) Johnstone Odera, Chris Mumelo and Prof Simiyu Wandibba.This NGO believes that the potential solutions to the above problems lie with the smallholder farmers who are basically resource poor. The fact that they are resource poor does not mean that they are ignorant. These categories of farmers possess lots of experience and coping mechanisms that only require facilitative empowerment in order for them to realize their own inherent potential. All that is needed to be done is for the potential of the farmers to be ignited, period.

GOALS OF SACRED AFRICA

On Research and Extension

• To establish training, extension and research partnerships with organizations providing complementary skills, facilities and contacts.
• To improve the productivity and performance of crops and livestock in sustainable and integrated production systems, which seek to conserve and enhance the environment

On Community Empowerment and Capacity Building

• To empower rural agricultural communities to take a lead in solving their own problems through capacity building in technical skills, leadership and group dynamics.
• To promote the conservation of agricultural biodiversity through the creation of awareness and environmental education and facilitating of community actions.
• To facilitate capacity building for rural Community Based Organizations and indigenous NGOs in order to enable them play more active roles of catalyzing the development of their communities.

On Best Agricultural Practices

• To facilitate value-adding and home-based processing of agricultural produce in order to increase their value, prolong their storage and improve their marketing.
• To promote meaningful and mutually rewarding exchange programs and interactive learning between researchers, development workers and agricultural communities.

On Institutional Strengthening and Development

• To develop SACRED Africa into a leading institution of excellence in sustainable agricultural research, training and development in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• To build, strengthen and enhance the capacities of SACRED Africa’s core resources and services in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness in service delivery.

On Lobbying and Advocacy

• To proactively influence positive and enabling environments for undertaking agricultural policy changes that will support and ensure the sustainability and profitability of farming enterprises.

On Poverty Alleviation

• To make a succinct contribution towards poverty alleviation through collaboratively building and strengthening the productive capacities of farming communities and enabling them to access socially and economically acceptable markets for their produce.

For more details contact the Director, SACRED Africa at sacred@africaonline.co.ke (c) 2009 SACRED Africa