Report regional workshop on Compost for Sustainable Agriculture

Enhancing the knowledge and raising awareness about uses, challenges and potentials of organic nutrient sources was among the core objectives of a regional workshop by the Fertile Grounds Initiative and CIAT held in Nairobi early September 2016.

The workshop “Compost for Sustainable Agriculture – facts, myths, potentials and business opportunities” addressed quality and quantity issues linked to the use of such resources, and how and if they can make existing farming systems more sustainable. It discussed the quality of compost samples that were gathered and analyzed beforehand; and discussed several existing and possible business models for resource recovery. More than 50 participants from different sectors including research, NGO’s, governmental organizations, private sector (mostly from the composting sector), networks and platforms with different expertise in nutrient management attended the workshop.

The participants of the workshop made a number of recommendations and requirements for the further implementation of organic resource recovery, which you can find in the report of the workshop (PDF).

Series of workshops

The workshop held in Nairobi forms part of a series of workshops on conditions for improved nutrient recycling in East-Africa. The Fertile Grounds Initiative (FGI), in collaboration with the Food & Business Knowledge Platform (F&BKP), organizes these workshops with the overall ambition to develop viable pathways of change towards more circular nutrient economies. In specific, FGI brings together actors in nutrient management and facilitate arrangements for nutrient trade at various level of scale.