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Kenyan farmers ripping big from small-scale agricultural irrigation projects
By Joseph Abuje, Charles Njeru and Henry Neondo
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With the outbreak of coronavirus in March 2020, the agricultural sector got badly hit as prices of commodities skyrocketed to the highs of 5.29 percent.
The agricultural sector provides a livelihood for about 80 per cent of Kenya’s population. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the sector contributes about 24 per cent to the GDP.
Thanks to a government project funded by the African Development Bank things could not get out of hand for the Kenyan rural population.
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“Farmers are making good money through value addition”, said Professor Hamadi Boga, Agriculture Principal Secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture.
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Small-scale irrigation project
The Small-scale Irrigation and Value Addition Project (SIVAP) was conceived by the Government of Kenya (GoK).
The need for this project emanated from the lessons learnt from, and the need to upscale, the concluded Small-Scale Horticulture Development Project (SHDP).
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Irrigation of an apple tree farm
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According to Prof Boga, the project has four major components:
- enhanced water infrastructure development,
- improved access to markets and strengthening of value chains,
- institutional strengthening and capacity development
- project coordination and management.
This project offers alternatives to reduce dependency on inadequate rainfall for agricultural production.
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Small scale farm families in at least five counties, namely Kajiado, Bomet, Tana River, Meru and Tharaka Nithi are benefiting from this project.Women farmers are major beneficiaries.
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According to Prof Boga, the beneficiaries include 104,000 farmers making a total of 520,000 persons – 58% of whom are women and youths in eleven counties of the country.
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“We hope to add more counties based on the availability of resources. There is a potential to reach about 650,000 small scale farmers in the next two years. We are targeting arid and semi-arid areas”, he adds.
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Additional beneficiaries
The project includes lessons such as;
- timely involvement of beneficiaries in design,
- following integrated catchment-based approach,
- irrigation command area development and
- training as part of the design.
According to Prof Boga, to secure food production, there is need to minimize dependency on rain-fed agriculture by utilizing water resources for irrigation under sustainable environmental management.
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This young project focuses on improving high value crop production rough construction / rehabilitation of twelve (12) small-scale irrigation schemes (2,905 ha) and micro-irrigation projects in eleven counties.
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In addition to improved irrigation infrastructure, the project will also focus on;
- improved access to markets,
- enhanced agro-processing,
- storage and post-harvest handling technologies,
- nutrition,
- institutional and human capacity building.
The project will help the government achieve the core objectives in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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