The business of growing trees is growing like wildlife in Kenya
Maseno, Kenya — Armed with a solar-powered water pump for irrigation and a quarter-acre piece of borrowed land, widow Hakima Mohammed has become a Western Kenya tree tycoon. Since 2013, she has sold at least 1.5-million seedling trees, mainly to local small-scale farmers, who are planting them as a way to boost their incomes from wood and fruit sales, particularly in the face of recurring droughts that have shriveled crops. In the process, she has found a way to support herself and her family — and Kenya is getting a hand in its efforts to see at least 10% of the country’s land covered in trees by 2030, as part of efforts to rein in drought and meet climate change goals. "This is a very good example of entrepreneurship ... I would really encourage young men and women to take up, and do the same in other parts of the country," said Eston Mutitu, a senior research scientist at the Kenya Forest Research Institute. Mohammed, who lives in Mwiyekhe, a village near Western Kenya’s Maseno t...
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