Just Earth
Just Earth (JE) partners with local churches and small-holder farmers to bring transformation to communities in rural Africa and beyond. Just Earth’s main focus is to benefit small holding farmers in rural villages in Kenya, improve their farming methods and help them set up small businesses, thereby helping alleviate poverty in their communities and provide a sustainable income.
Alex (Pennington) Lloyd Davis
16 Years in CBC and Brand Management, UK and Ireland.
Other involved Alum: David Cross.
Alex has been involved with Just Earth for over 15 years, including 10 years on its Board, overseeing marketing activities, chairing the advisory council and annual off-sites, and multiple firsthand visits to the Kenyan operations. She is currently Chair. David Cross, another alum (UK Sales), has served on the Board since 2012 and is involved with operations oversight.
Alex so passionately writes in her letter of recommendation, “I will never forget seeing fields of maize 12 foot high from one of our farm graduate plots set amongst the land of scrabbly 3 foot maize. Nor the smile of pride from the Just Earth graduate who was now able to afford to have chickens and sell eggs and so buy the uniform for her children and send them to school.”
Just Earth has 15 years of experience in setting up and operating Farm Schools to help farmers in rural villages improve their farming methods and set up small businesses. Training in well-established agricultural methods, nutrition, hygiene, finance management, and entrepreneurship is provided by trained agricultural facilitators in weekly training over a two-year period. The program also includes interest-free loans for seed and fertilizer required by the farmers. They have been able to demonstrate significant increases in harvest size (3x-8x), thereby reducing hunger, increasing nutritional health, and enabling families to afford to send their children to school. More than 4000 have graduated from over 125 JE Farm Schools since 2005.
This new initiative will take Just Earth’s successful farm school model, and adapt and re-apply it to Kakuma, one of the largest refugee camps in the world and now home to people from Somalia, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. The latest UNHRC report states there are 160,000 refugees in Kakuma (Dec 2020) – there are reports from JE visits in 2024 that this has swelled to 300,000. Aridity of the region presents challenges for agriculture and water resource management and requires innovative solutions for sustainable development and livelihood improvement.
The PGAF grant will help fund the operation of two new farm schools that will train 100 farmers. Funds will help pay for seed and fertilizer expenses, costs for a training demo plot, training facilitator travel and fees, and costs for two bore holes with solar power for irrigation.
Rael is a member of God of is Able Farm School. Aged 51, Rael is married with 2 children. Through training, Rael has adopted good agricultural practices that has improved maize yields in a quarter acre from 3to 10 (90kg) bags. She has learned banana farming; vegetable growing and applies recommended techniques- e.g., use of multi-story kitchen gardens for climate change adaptation. Income from sale of farm produce has enabled Rael to start a pig-keeping project. She uses manure from the piggery to produce biogas for use in her kitchen.
Rael is grateful for the Kingdom Life Course which she says has made her a more responsible steward of God’s resources. The training has made her a role model in her community, and she has herself trained more than 50 other people on her farm with what she has learned!