Women’s effort to fight hunger bearing fruit in Daadab

Mr Yatich says irrigation may not be a sustainable solution in the long run, noting that the availability of water enough to engage substantial number of farmers in irrigation remains a challenge.

Food insecurity

“We should be focusing on harvesting rain water where it falls: at individual farms. This is the surest way towards ending food insecurity,” he argues. With rain water harvesting, arid lands could increase food production by up to 30 per cent whereas high potential areas could double their current yields, he says.

Although it rains for a few days in arid areas, farmers need only two rains to harvest short season and drought resistant crops such as sorghum and pasture for their livestock, says Mr Yatich. The FFA project, which currently targets communities living within a 35-45km radius of the Dadaab refugee camps-Ifo, Dagahaley and Hagadera, aims at helping vulnerable pastoralist communities to diversify into food production.

Beneficiaries of the project’s first phase were given food for each day they work on construction of water pans. A total of 3,000 food insecure households, translating to about 18,000 people, living around the Hagadera, Ifo and Dagahaley refugee camps, have been roped into the project.