Edited by

Canon E.N. Savala, Musa N. Omare and Paul L. Woomer

Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies

FORMAT, Nairobi

Published by Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies (FORMAT), P.O. Box 79, The Village Market 00621, Nairobi, Kenya.

Email: format@wananchi.com

Forward Organic Resource Management

The Forum for Organic Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies serves as a platform for promoting innovation among those seeking to make better use of what is too often overlooked. These under-utilized organic resources include crop residues, agro-industrial by-products, domestic wastes and native plants with poorly understood properties. Perspectives on the value of organic resources differ greatly. For example, on large farms, crop residues are considered a disposal problem while the poorest of smallhold farmers must scavenge for crop roots as a source of cooking fuel.

The rush towards modernized agriculture has bypassed better use of what was already available in rural areas, and the traditional knowledge to realize this lost advantage is held by fewer members of the rural community as time passes. Meanwhile in urban areas, accumulating garbage subjects residents to offensive sights and odours as well as unnecessary health risks. Waste recycling is too often viewed by planners and much of the public as a large-scale industrial process, not as an opportunity for cottage industry or more efficiently operated households.

But we humans are very adept at responding to changing circumstances, usually because we are responsible in one way or another for the changes in the first place. If necessity is the mother of invention, then under-utilized organic materials must be the father because without curious minds and busy hands it is unlikely that we will improve our wellbeing and surroundings.