Mr Munene and his wife Andrea Bye are harvesting organic vegetables, tomatoes, purple beans to be delivered to Nairobi restaurants, retail outlets and customers’ homes.
The crops are grown on their less than an acre of land. Mr Munene is one of the growing number of urban farmers practicing organic farming.
This mode of farming prohibits the use of synthetic (chemical) fertilisers and pesticides in crop production.
Farmers rely on natural processes, compost manure and biological pest control methods to boost soil fertility or manage pests and diseases. Such eco-friendly farming techniques became less popular following the Green Revolution in the 1950s.
During this period, global agricultural productivity increased drastically following the development of chemical fertilisers and pesticides that boosted yields. The reliance on these agricultural inputs is a hall mark of the currently practised conventional farming.
Despite their benefits to agricultural productivity, use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides degrade the environment and contaminate food. This problem is now a global public health concern.
Demand for organic foods in the West is growing as more consumers shun crops laden with pesticides and the trend is slowly picking up in Kenya.
Kenya lacks mechanisms to control pesticide use in farms despite concerns of the risks they pose.
“Public institutions lack the capacity and another scenario is that they may have done the tests (pesticide levels), found the results to be really bad and decided to hold the information in confidence to avoid alarming the public,’’ said Wanjiru Kamau, the director of the Kenya Organic Agriculture Network (Koan).
Health experts note that many Kenyans may be consuming unsafe foods with above the required levels of chemical pesticides.
A 2014 study by researchers from the University of Nairobi and Strathmore University revealed the presence of high pesticide residue levels in tomatoes, kale (sukumawiki), amaranth (mchicha) and mangoes sold in major Kenyan towns.
Another previous study conducted by Koan found that food sold in common Nairobi markets was laced with excess chemicals above World Health Organisation (WHO) recommended safety levels.
Some of the pesticides detected– such as Heptachlor and Parathion methyl— are banned.
Fruits and vegetable exports to the European Union (EU) market have in the past also been rejected due to high levels of a chemical known as dimethoate— considered as cancer-causing and a public health hazard.