{"id":5411,"date":"2019-09-18T15:13:12","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T12:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:33","slug":"energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/18\/energy\/","title":{"rendered":"Shifting Towards Energy Smart Farming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At\nthe heart of the vision 2030 Agenda, lies sustainable farming, the key to\nachieving sustainable Development Goals. Kenya\u2019s Big 4 Agenda is directly or\nindirectly connected to food production. Agriculture is an important sector in\nKenya, practiced mostly by smallholder farmers. Energy inputs play a critical\nrole in every stage of production. This ranges from the chemical application,\nfueling tractors to lay seeds and harvesting crops, lighting, and cooking. However,\nthis energy use and exploitation are not without costs to their health.\nEspecially if the energy is not clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nworld\u2019s poorest \u2013 many of whom are smallholder farmers \u2013 are tasked with the\nbulk of food production in developing countries. Yet, most are marginalized.\nThis creates a huge deficit for them to access energy-efficient services for\ntheir farming activities and domestic use. In particular,65 percent of farm\npower<\/a> in Sub-Saharan Africa relies on human effort, 25\npercent on animals and only a small percentage rely on engines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With access to modern energy-saving technologies, smallholder farmers can significantly impact food security, end rural poverty and reduce gender disparityCleaner and reliable energy services enable farmer and agribusinesses to cut on costs, engage in value-added processing and improve farmers\u2019 health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read also: Biotechnology: A Promising Tool for Food Security<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being no strangers to the power of sunlight, smallholder farmers can explore the potential of solar energy to cut the farm’s electricity and heating bills. They can use solar heat collectors, water heaters and electric panels in daily farm productions and operations such as drying crops, powering water pumps for irrigation and lighting of homes and farmhouses.<\/strong> Also, solar box dryers can be used to dry the easily perishable crops for easy transportation. These benefits are not only geared towards increasing a farm’s efficiency and cutting costs but also help improve the farmer’s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farmers can also benefit from the energy and opportunity blowing in the wind. Farms that rely on wind energy go a long way in saving costs associated with energy consumption. Use of wind turbines in agriculture comes in handy in mixing up the air and getting more CO2 to the crops. Also, they reduce the amount of dew on leaves at night, helping reduce crop diseases such as those caused by fungi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\neffects of burning solid fuels indoors have been associated with the poor in\ndeveloping countries for many years. Smallholder farmers who use coal, wood and\nother solid fuels for cooking purposes are most likely to suffer the adverse\neffects of carbon emission and global warming. Biomass energy – produced from\nplants, organic wastes, and farm residues \u2013 as a source of biofuels can be used\nfor lighting homes, farms and cooking. This increases food production while at\nthe same time lowering the negative effects of burning fossil fuels such as the\nhazardous effects of carbon monoxide on a farmer\u2019s health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wind energy helps reduce the amount of dew on leaves at night, reducing crop diseases. Photo by nationalpost.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Energy\nsmart food systems are \u2018climate-smart\u2019 since they help mitigate climate change\nby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Embracing energy-smart food systems, help\nsmallholder farmers become resilient to the effects of climate change and\nenhance their health as well as diversify their incomes. Embracing bioenergy\ncrops, biomass residues and renewable platforms such as wind, solar and\nmini-hydro help farmers avoid health problems such as asthma, bronchitis, and\ncancer and increase farm productivity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is with no doubt that there exists a relationship between food and energy in both high and low GDP countries. The world needs to produce 70% more food by 2050. <\/a>Achieving this goal will be difficult if energy prices keep rising. Organic energy consumption can point the way to wisely balancing food production, economic efficiency, and environmental conservation. This will ultimately enhance the health viability of smallholder farmers who adopt energy-saving practices.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the heart of the vision 2030 Agenda, lies sustainable farming, the key to achieving sustainable Development Goals. Kenya\u2019s Big 4 Agenda is directly or indirectly connected to food production.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economic-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}