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Domestic and industrial effluent combined with domestic wastes in the urban watercourses of Nairobi are widely perceived as the causes of stench and disease, but not so for the thousands of urban farmers who have come to embrace the waste in urban farming, stocking grocery shops in the city with leafy vegetables, succulent oranges and large potatoes.

It is a blossoming market dominated by women from the informal settlements who transport their produce to the city center to cash in on thousands of Nairobians who wish to buy groceries after leaving their place of work.

Food supply

Globally, urban farming is believed to produce roughly 20 per cent of the world’s food supply, with half of this food being grown using waste water, according to a 2009 survey of 53 cities conducted by the International Water Management Institute.

But in sub-Saharan Africa, urban and peri-urban farmers who depend on wastewater to grow their crops are producing 70-90 per cent of the perishable vegetables consumed in African cities.

The human and waste water contains significant nutrients for crop production that not only reduce the need for chemical fertilizers, but also increase crop yields.

Yet the health risks through microbial crop contamination, especially in foods consumed uncooked, are a reality.