Harakati ya Kilimo-Uhifadhi People
Gatua wa Mbũgwa, Ph.D.
Gatua wa Mbũgwa, Ph.D., Executive Director
Gatua wa Mbũgwa is the Founder and Executive Director of Harakati ya Kilimo-Uhifadhi, a nonprofit organization registered in Kenya in 2004. Gatua grew up in rural Mũtũngũrũ, Gatũndũ, a high potential agricultural region of Kenya.
Gatua has worked with smallholder farmers since childhood. He started organizing community farmers in 1980, the year he started growing his own smallscale commercial crops on his parent's land.
Gatua took short courses in organic farming in the 1980s before returning to school in 1990 to further his formal education.
In 1989, Gatua founded Mũtũngũrũ Organic Farmers (MOF), a grassroots farmers' association that uses biointensive methods to grow its food and earn income. Gatua trained MOF's over 300 initial biointensive farmers in 1989-1992.
With generous funding from Kilili Self Help Project of California, U.S.A., MOF has sent 50 of its members to learn biointensive agricultural methods at the Manor House Agricultural Centre in Kitale, Kenya.
These farmers have become biointensive trainers in their own rights. They have helped train their neighbors, and a growing community of biointensive agricultural smallholder farmers in Mũtũngũrũ now use the biointensive method to grow foodcrops and earn income.
Encouraged by the success of Mũtũngũrũ Organic Farmers, Gatua founded Harakati ya Kilimo-Uhifadhi in 2004. Harakati ya Kilimo-Uhifadhi promotes grassroots conservation agricultural education and extension in Kenya.
Gatua wa Mbũgwa's Educational Background
Ph.D. in Agronomy, University of Wyoming, December 2008M.S. in Crop and Soil Sciences, Cornell University, May 2003
M.P.S. in Agriculture, Cornell University, January 2001
Dual B.A. in Environmental Studies and Politics, University of California Santa Cruz, December 1997