A sorghum farm at the Nanyee Irrigation Scheme, Loima, Turkana County. [File, Standard]
Until the discovery of oil a few years ago, the mention of Turkana would conjure up images of starving children and skeletal men and women sprawled on vast stretches of dry land simmering with heat.
But something is changing in Turkana, and no, it is not because of the oil.
There is a little Eden coming up in the middle of the county’s deceivingly desolate lands, and Miriam Ekidor lives in it. She and her small band of farmers occupy the 100-acre Nanyee Irrigation Scheme in Loima.
Intense heat
In the midst of the intense heat, you will find Ms Ekidor and her fellow villagers tenaciously working between rows of promising cow peas, sorghum and maize.
From the look of things, it will be another bumper harvest, and Ekidor will not have to wait for relief food – not for as long as water flows down a 1.2-kilometre canal to the irrigation scheme.
“The scheme is our life. We stopped relying on relief food as soon as it was established five years ago,” she says.
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The canal, which draws water from River Turkwel, has transformed the semi-arid Loima plains into a green Eden.
The revival of the scheme, through the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and other agencies, has turned around Ekidor’s fortunes, as well as her neighbours’.
Next to her half-acre farm, Mzee Lotiira is also busy preparing his farm for planting.
Lotiira, who has been a farmer in Turkwel for more than 10 years, knows only too well that the area has immense potential, not just for maize and sorghum, but also for more vegetables and fruits.
Just water
All that is needed is water, and more water.
“I pray that the people in charge of agriculture extend the canal to more farms so that this scheme can feed the growing population,” says Lotiira.
Presently, the scheme is feeding the entire population in Turkwel, Loima sub-county.
Its chairman, Mose Tian, says it can feed more people if the canal, which quickly gets clogged with mud, is kept flowing.
“All farmers should help in desilting the canal for the continuity the scheme,” he says.
According to Gabriel Ekaale, a World Food Programme (WFP) official in Lodwar, the half-acre farms at the scheme are enough to change the lives of the 760 farmers that depend on it.
“That harvest to us is enough to meet the nutrition and food needs of the residents of Nanyee for the entire year,” he says.
The WFP supports the scheme’s infrastructure while FAO supports community trainings for farmers to generate three harvests every year.
Under the joint programme, a 1.2-kilometre canal was constructed to channel Turkwel’s waters to the farms. A four-kilometre fence has also been put up to prevent conflicts between the farmers and roaming pastoralists.
Scheme members are linked to markets, which include traders within the county, the Kakuma refugee camp and learning institutions.
According to Mr Ekaale, FAO and WFP are working on contract deals that will see farmers contracted to produce sorghum that can be purchased by the county government and other agencies to be used as relief food for vulnerable groups during drought.
“Currently, using the school meals programme in Nanyee and neighbouring areas, we are implementing four delivery contracts to supply sorghum for homegrown school meals programmes,” he says.
The head of the FAO team in Turkana, Daniel Ruirura, says the ultimate objective of the project is to change the lives of residents for the better, and give them hope.
For Ekidor, it has already achieved its objectives.
“The scheme has turned out to be a reliable source of livelihoods. After harvesting my sorghum and maize, I keep three bags to feed my family and sell the rest to take my children to school,” she says.
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Nanyee Irrigation SchemeTurkanaFAORiver TurkwelIrrigation
