Yorkshire professor takes on epic Kenya cycling challenge helps women farmers
A Yorkshire professor is taking on an epic challenge to help women farmers in Africa continue to develop sustainable agriculture and protect the environment.
Michelle Morris, from Baildon in West Yorkshire, is taking part in the GROW for Good Challenge with an all-women team, cycling 46 miles through Embu County in Kenya between October 20 and 25 to raise funds and awareness for international charity Farm Africa.
Camping overnight, the team will stop on the way to work on farms run by female farmers, taking part in the charity’s regenerative agriculture project.
At the end of their journey, the team will gather for a round table event with female industry leaders in Kenya’s capital city Nairobi to raise awareness of the need to drive positive change for women in the global food system.
The charity supports small-scale farmers in eastern Africa to grow and sell more, while adapting to climate change and protecting the environment. The team of 12 aims to raise £75,000, with more than £32,000 so far made.
Michelle, 44, who lives with partner James, said: "I jumped at the chance to get involved with #TeamGROW, to raise important funding, to learn from these Kenyan women and the women I will travel from the UK with, and to contribute something to this legacy through our round table event.
"When I learned that there would be a cycling challenge too then I wanted to be involved even more.
"It is a special way to see a country and being uncomfortable - which we will be, considering the temperature and altitude and steepness of the unsealed roads we’ll be cycling on - makes the challenge greater and hopefully people will dig a little deeper when sponsoring us for this important cause.”
As well as the offical Farm Africa challenge, Michelle is doing her own fundraising by cycling or running the equivalent of length of Kenya - 703 miles, though most of them will be run off-road in Yorkshire, re-creating the unsealed surfaces in the African nation - and intends to reach the target on a bike in the Embu County later this month.
She says that £26 can provide drought tolerant seeds for a female farmer, £48 can supply tools for regenerative farming and £130 can fund training for village-based advisors.
Women are the backbone of Africa’s farming workforce, says Farm Africa, yet life for rural women isn’t easy. In sub-Saharan Africa, the female share of the agricultural labour force is the highest in the world, they add.
Farm Africa works to open up new opportunities for female farmers across eastern Africa, helping them to develop new streams of income and work their way out of poverty, while protecting local ecosystems for generations to come.
The GROW team will help with hands-on regenerative agriculture activities on farms like composting and mulching.
They will also experience life in rural Kenya and find out how Farm Africa improves farmers’ knowledge of good agricultural practices through an innovative network of the village-based advisors.
Michelle, who works as a professor of data science for food at the University of Leeds, is most looking forward to “meeting the Kenyan women farmers and seeing what their daily activities are like. With my passion for data, I am most excited to meet the data clerks, who measure and record processes on the farms, important for many reasons, including consideration of carbon credits”.
On her JustGiving donation page, she says: “This challenge is fully funded, so I invite you to donate whatever you can to support Farm Africa’s continue it's remarkable efforts to help farmers escape poverty.”
So far she has raised £1,135 of her own £2,000 target.
Anissa Msallem, head of partnerships for Farm Africa, says: "The GROW for Good Challenge is bringing together women across the global food system around the power of sustainable agriculture to change people’s lives and protect the environment. We are grateful to them for taking on this unique challenge and the impact they will make."
You can donate to GROW for good at https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/grow-for-good while Michelle’s own page is at: www.justgiving.com/page/michelle-morris-1723465842089