LIVELIHOODS, FOOD SECURITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISK: SACK GARDENING IN THE KIBERA SLUMS OF NAIROBI, KENYA By Courtney Maloof Gallaher A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Geography 2012 ABSTRACT LIVELIHOODS, FOOD SECURITY AND ENVIRONMENTAL RISK: SACK GARDENING IN THE KIBERA SLUMS OF NAIROBI, KENYA By Courtney Maloof Gallaher This dissertation research examined the impacts of a particular form of urban agriculture, sack gardening, in the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya. Urban agriculture is often promoted as a means of addressing urban food insecurity, but because slum dwellers in Nairobi generally lack access to plots of land to farm, this activity has remained largely inaccessible to them. Sack gardening, a relatively novel form of urban agriculture in the Kibera slums, involves planting various crops into the top and sides of large plastic sacks filled with soil, which allows people to plant a larger number of plants into relatively small spaces by making use of the vertical space occupied by the sacks. While urban agriculture has great potential to address urban food insecurity, there are also potential risks associated with farming in urban environments that lack formal waste and sanitation systems. Households that consume produce grown in urban environments are potentially exposed to a range of environmental contaminants, including heavy metals and biological pathogens. This dissertation investigated the trade-offs between urban agriculture as a means of improving local livelihoods and increasing household food security, and as an activity that potentially exposes people to a variety of environmental risks. My research on sack gardening in Kibera used a mixed methods approach, drawing on qualitative interviews, household surveys, focus group discussions and an analysis of plant, soil and water samples. This research demonstrated that sack gardening is a viable livelihood strategy in the Kibera slums that can be integrated with other household livelihood strategies, and that farmers in Kibera were able to successfully integrate sack gardening into their urban livelihood strategies. I found that sack gardening contributed to improved household food security directly. Farming households consumed a greater variety of vegetables than non-farmers, including many indigenous vegetables, which have broader nutritional benefits and are culturally preferred to the kale, swiss chard and cabbage which are consumed by most households in Kibera. Farmers reported feeling more food secure than non-farmers, and sack gardening also resulted in an increase in social capital, which helps food security indirectly. This research demonstrated that farmers’ perceptions of environmental risks focused primarily on visible contaminates, while the major contaminants found in samples of vegetables from their sack gardens were heavy metals, often at concentrations above the recommended levels for human consumption. The disconnect between farmers’ perceptions of environmental risk and actual risk raises questions about how to appropriately promote urban agriculture within urban areas as well as the trade-offs inherent with farming in densely populated and polluted urban areas. While this research is based on a case study of urban agriculture in one slum in Kenya, it demonstrates both the potential benefits and risks associated with farming in an urban environment. Additionally, it suggests that policy makers and development organizations who promote urban agriculture as a means of improving urban food security need to be cognizant of the socioeconomic context and ecology of the urban environments in which this activity will take place. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was made possible with generous financial support from of a number of organizations. Dissertation field research was funded through a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant from the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, Geography and Spatial Sciences Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant #1030325) and a Society of Women Geographers Evelyn Pruitt Dissertation Fellowship (2010). Additional funding for my field research was provided by the Association of American Geographers (AAG), a Kenneth E. and Marie J. Corey Research Enrichment Fund Award, a Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS) summer language fellowship, a Sommers International Research award, and by the Department of Geography at MSU in the form of several Graduate Office Fellowships (GOF) received between 2007 and 2011. Various other agencies were instrumental in allowing me to conduct research in Kenya. This study was conducted with the permission of the National Council for Science and Technology of the Republic of Kenya- Research Permit No. NCST/RRI/12/1/510. I am grateful to the District Officer of Kibera for allowing me to conduct research in and around Kibera. The human subjects research protection protocol was approved by the Social Science/Behavioral/Education Institutional Review Board (SIRB) at Michigan State University (IRB #10-568) on July 16, 2010 and was renewed on July 18, 2011. Numerous people have contributed to my training as a doctoral student and researcher over the years, all of whom to which I am immensely grateful. First, I would iv like to thank my advisor Antoinette WinklerPrins, and committee members Catherine Yansa, John Kerr and Anne Ferguson for the guidance they have given me over the past several years in helping to develop and carry out this research project. Antoinette has been an amazing advisor and friend to me over the years, providing me with helpful academic advice and also supporting me through the many trials that one faces as a graduate student. I really appreciated her willingness to travel to Kenya and visit me during my field research, and for whisking me away from Kibera to the coast of Kenya for a much needed mental break after the mugging incident I experienced while conducting my household survey in Kibera. Antoinette’s support has been invaluable over the years and I will miss working with her. I am also thankful to Anne for opening my eyes to the world of feminist thought and the social sciences through the Gender Justice and Environmental Change (GJEC) courses that I took from her while getting my master’s degree in Crop and Soil Science. Her courses, and subsequent fieldwork I did with her in Malawi in 2005, opened my eyes beyond the world of soils and the laboratory, and eventually pushed me to pursue my PhD in human-environment geography. John has stretched me as a student academically in his courses and provided me with extremely useful advice about the direction of my dissertation and the practicalities of implementing my project, for which I am grateful. Over the years, Catherine has provided me with excellent academic advice, helped train me as a teaching assistant, and enthusiastically supported my dissertation research. My field research in Kenya would not have been possible without the amazing support and collaboration of a number of different people. Professor Nancy Karanja, from the Department of Land Resource Management and Agricultural Technologies v (LARMAT) at the University of Nairobi served as my in-country supervisor and mentor while in Kenya. Nancy’s vast experience working with urban agriculture and enthusiastic support of my project is what made my research in Kenya a possibility. Mary Njenga, a doctoral student in LARMAT at the University of Nairobi, served as my project advisor while in Kenya, helping me to select and train my research assistants, providing feedback on my survey instruments, and coordinating the feedback workshops at the end of my projects. Her day-to-day support helped my project run quickly and smoothly and I cannot imagine finding a better person to collaborate with on a project like mine. I am grateful to her for her help and for the friendship she provided me while in the field. Dennis Mwaniki, a master’s student in Geography at the University of Nairobi, served as my primary research assistant throughout my project. I appreciate not only the practical support he provided for my project, but also his light-hearted approach to life, which made fieldwork fun every day. Catherine Wangui, a farmer from Kibera, served as my main field assistant, helping to coordinate every aspect of my field research, including interviews, surveys, focus groups, and sampling of the gardens. Catherine continually inspires me as I see how hard she works to better her life in Kibera, and I miss her immensely. My household survey would not have been possible without the help of George Aloo, Joel Boboti, Baraka Mwau, Jack Odero, who served as enumerators for my project, and I am grateful to Elija Kimuttai Kutto and Baraka Mwau, who helped me to collect my soil, plant and water samples. I am immensely grateful to my dear friend Jamie Clearfield, who spent countless hours entering my household survey data into a database while recovering from a severe bout of malaria at my home in Nairobi. Finally, vi I am thankful to my friend Lucy Openja, and her family, for opening their home to me to stay year after year during my travels to and from Kenya. My experience as a graduate student in Geography at MSU has been made richer through my interactions with numerous graduate students over the years. Although I will not miss my windowless basement office in geography, I will definitely miss the fun and support that I always found from all my fellow students down in the basement of the building. While numerous graduate students have helped me through this experience, I would like to thank Meleia Egger for recruiting me to the geography program and for pointing me to Antoinette as an advisor. Without her encouragement, I may not have been brave enough to make the leap from Crop and Soil Science to Geography. I would also like to thank the secretarial staff in the Geography department at MSU, Sharon Ruggles, Claudia Brown and Judy Reginek, for answering numerous questions and helping me navigate the ins and outs of MSU over the years.