An informal start

Before Green Revolution Farmers existed as a name, it existed as a habit: a small group of neighbours in Babadogo who had taken to sharing seeds, swapping tools, and comparing notes over the fence about what was and was not growing well in Nairobi's often exhausted urban soils. Land in Kariobangi North is tight and expensive, and few households had more than a small plot, a rooftop, or a row of sacks to work with.

What those early conversations shared was a simple, stubborn belief: that even a small piece of ground in the city could produce real food and real income if people had the right techniques and were not trying to figure it out alone.

From informal group to registered CBO

As interest grew beyond the original group of neighbours, it became clear that an informal arrangement would only take the work so far. Partners, county agricultural officers, and potential donors all needed a legal, accountable structure to work with rather than an unregistered group of friends. In August 2020, Green Revolution Farmers registered formally as a Community Based Organization with the Department of Social Development, under Certificate No. 44102 and Registration No. RUA/CBO/5/4/2020/108.

Registration changed more than the paperwork. It gave the group a written constitution, an elected committee accountable to the membership, and a transparent structure for handling funds and reporting on programs — the same structure you can review in detail on our Transparency page.

What has not changed

What has stayed the same since those early fence-line conversations is who the organization serves and how decisions get made: current and aspiring farmers in Babadogo and the surrounding Kariobangi North area, led by an elected committee made up of members themselves, not outside staff.

That member-led structure is why our programs — sack gardening, table banking, water conservation, and the rest — tend to track so closely to what members actually ask for, rather than what looks good on a donor report. We are still, at heart, neighbours sharing what works.

Lessons from the years before registration

The years before formal registration were not wasted time, even though they left little written record. What that period taught the founding group, mostly through direct trial and error, was which techniques actually held up against Babadogo's specific conditions — its soil, its water access, its market patterns — rather than techniques that simply sounded good in principle. Several practices we now teach as settled, standard training, sack gardening chief among them, were refined during this informal period through repeated small failures and adjustments long before they became a formal curriculum.

That period also taught the group something about pace: trying to grow too quickly, before the group had genuinely working methods to teach, would have meant spreading unreliable advice to more people faster. Registration came only once there was something solid enough to formalize, which is part of why the organization's early growth, both before and immediately after registration, was deliberately gradual rather than rapid.

How the founding group first met

The founding group did not set out to start an organization. Several of the earliest members knew each other simply as neighbours on the same street in Babadogo, meeting initially over shared frustration with the cost and unreliability of buying vegetables at market compared with the possibility of growing even a little themselves. A handful of informal conversations over several weeks turned into a loosely organized group swapping seed and comparing results.

What eventually pushed the group toward something more structured was less a single dramatic moment than a slow accumulation of practical need — enough members, enough shared tools, enough informal lending between households that keeping track of who owed what to whom by memory alone had become genuinely difficult.

Looking back, the biggest lesson from those early years is that the technical side of farming — which seed, which sack, which watering schedule — was never actually the hardest part. The hardest part was building enough trust between neighbours that people were willing to pool tools, share hard-won lessons honestly including the failures, and eventually trust a shared committee with collective decisions. Everything the organization has built since, from table banking to the seed bank, rests on that same foundation of trust between ordinary households in Babadogo.

Key takeaways

  • Green Revolution Farmers began as informal seed and tool sharing between neighbours.
  • Formal CBO registration came in August 2020 under Reg. No. RUA/CBO/5/4/2020/108.
  • The organization remains member-led, with an elected committee accountable to farmers themselves.
  • Our founding belief: even a small urban plot can produce real food and income.

Frequently asked questions

When did Green Revolution Farmers register as a CBO?
We registered formally on 10 August 2020, under Certificate No. 44102 and Registration No. RUA/CBO/5/4/2020/108.

Who runs the organization?
An elected committee made up of members themselves, not outside paid staff, consistent with our member-led structure.

Can anyone in Babadogo join?
Yes — membership is open to current and aspiring farmers in Babadogo and the wider Kariobangi North area; details are on our Get Involved page.