Turkana project lights way to food security

Prolonged drought in recent years have left a trail of destruction in Turkana County. Locals tell of a decade of thirst, hunger, malnutrition, loss of their only source of livelihood — livestock — and untold human suffering resulting from prolonged seasons of famine.

The only way out for the locals, it would seem, is adopting farming alongside livestock keeping, or agro-pastoralism. It is a new way of life that they are slowly embracing.

“Our focus is on livelihood development. Poverty levels in Turkana are high since the pastoralist communities rely mainly on their livestock as a source of income,” says Peter Lochuch, Turkana programme manager for Childfund Kenya, an organisation that focuses on the well-being of children.

Turkana County government records show that over 60 per cent of the residents rely on pastoralism.

“However, given climatic change in recent years, which has seen cyclic periods of drought and floods, the population of residents who gainfully make a living has kept on reducing,” explains Mr Lochuch.

Hence the need to introduce other economic activities, such as agro-pastoralism. This includes irrigation agriculture and water harvesting, poultry and bee keeping, and small-scale businesses.

“This has helped to diversify their sources of income,” Mr Lochuch added.

It is against this backdrop that Childfund Kenya, in partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the government, has been running the Food for Assets Project for the last eight years.

The project works with the locals to grow subsistence food crops. This helps them to meet their families’ nutritional needs in times of famine.

To support the farming project, Childfund Kenya has been sinking boreholes in areas without rivers. “In areas close to rivers we channel the water through canals,” said Mr Lochuch.

The locals have been using the water to plant vegetables, maize and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes. As a result of the enhanced access to water, and in order to take care of the crops, the pastoralist community has started settling down in villages not far from water sources.

GREAT POTENTIAL

Each of the asset-creation projects supports over 700 households with food and water both for domestic use and for their livestock.

Since 2007, over 750 acres of land have been put under irrigation agriculture. “There is potential for 1,200 acres to be put under irrigation agriculture. We are still expanding,” Mr Lochuch shared.

Moreover, farmers can sell any surplus food crops for money. “Those who had no livestock are able to sell the surplus farm produce and purchase livestock, or even exchange the produce for livestock — like two sacks of maize for a goat,” said Mr Lochuch.

With two seasons in a year and each of the families having between an acre and 1.5 acres to farm, they grow enough food for the entire year.

“This has stimulated sedentary lifestyles as they also grow fodder for their livestock and have storage facilities for their grain. The average family in Turkana has between six and eight children. The project has helped build food security. When we started, there were no facilities such as schools and health centres. School enrolment has also increased and, in all the 13 sites where the irrigation schemes are located, there are very few cases of malnutrition,” he added.

Johana Ekidor, 35, is a resident of Lojokobwo village which is part of the Kangalita Irrigation Scheme.

SOURCE OF INCOME

Mr Ekidor, a father of five, is a volunteer secretary at the scheme. He is also one of the beneficiaries. “I farm a half-acre piece of land where I harvest eight 50-kilogramme bags of maize per season,” Mr Ekidor reveals, his face beaming.

At the Kangalita Irrigation Scheme, crops are watered through canals from the River Turkwel. Here, the residents of Lojokobwo village, over 250 households, grow maize, sukuma wiki, pawpaws, green grams, sorghum and cowpeas. They sell the surplus to at the Lodwar and Lokichar markets. “This enables us to pay school fees, hospital bills, buy other foodstuff and clothing,” says Mr Ekidor.

Mary Apus, a mother of six, is in her 60s and takes care of some of her grandchildren. Ms Apus cultivates a one-acre farm in the scheme, where she harvests 20 bags of maize, each weighing 50 kilogrammes.

“When the maize runs out, we sell one of the goats to buy maize, which goes at Sh2,500 per bag. We are happy that we can get vegetables from the farm,” she says.

Loseny Ekiru is 30, and already a mother of five. Her last born child, just few months old, is strapped to her back, and her eldest daughter, who is 15 years old, has today accompanied her to the farm.

A resident of Kakakel village, Ms Ekiru has since late 2013 been tilling a half-acre farm at the Kangalita Irrigation Scheme. “I harvest five bags of maize twice in a year,” says Ms Ekiru.

Her daughter is nursing a newborn, another addition to her family and a new mouth to feed. Part of the rationale for this project is the high population growth rate in Turkana where, according to experts, food security is already in a precarious state.

HIGH POPULATION GROWTH RATE

According to the 2009 census, Turkana had a population of 855,922 people.

In 2015, the Turkana County annual development plan 2015-2016, established that the population had shot up to slightly over a million, at a time when 95 per cent of them were living below the poverty line.

In October 2016, the National Council for Population and Development (NCPD) found that the population growth in Turkana stood at 4.7 per cent, compared to the national average of 2.7 per cent.

Such a high population growth rate, amid high poverty levels, has constantly ensured that the residents remain vulnerable to the vagaries of weather.

Families such as Ms Ekiru’s find it difficult to survive and require additional economic safety nets, away from nomadic pastoralism. The Kangalita Irrigation Scheme has given them a new source of livelihood, if only they could continually be well-managed, especially the canals from the River Turkwel.

However, the canals have recently filled with silt since the government feeding programme stopped, and the seepages have led to water losses.

“Rations of relief food from the World Food Programme (WFP) would encourage farmers to organise themselves and desilt the canals every two weeks. But since the programme was stopped, the locals have abandoned the canals, which are now full of silt — hindering water flow,” Ms Apus shared. “Only a handful residents heed the call to come and desilt the canals, yet a good number of them are blocked,” Mr Ekidor says.

Ms Ekiru also notes that food production would improve if the canals were expanded.

Her husband has five cows and 10 goats. “Prolonged drought has seen the few livestock die. But with the irrigation farm, life has improved,” she shares. Five years back, her family would move with their goats, cattle and sheep. “But today, we have settled. The health of my children, too, has improved,” she says.

AFFORDABLE SOURCE OF FOOD

Towards the West of the River Turkwel is the orange-fleshed sweet potatoes project in the Kooliyoror Irrigation Scheme.

The five-acre farm is a group project and is part of the food-for-assets programme jointly run by Childfund Kenya and Childfund New Zealand.

The project, which benefits over 150 households, is served by a borehole with a solar powered pump. “Orange-fleshed sweet potatoes are a highly nutritious yet an affordable source of food for local residents, who aren’t very well off financially,” Mr Wilson Silali, agricultural officer in Loima Sub-County says, adding that nearly every part of the crop is edible and rich in nutrients.

The tubers are rich in iron, and vitamin A and C, while the leaves, which are used as vegetables, are richer in proteins than milk.

“The leaves are ideally picked for cooking one or two months after planting the vines and are prepared just like managu is,” says Mr Silali.

The produce is shared among the 150 households and a local early childhood development education (ECDE) centre. “The surplus is sold and the water used by the community for drinking, household use and watering their livestock,” says Mr Silali.

There are plans to extend the water supply from the farm to the community through pipes. “This is a high-yield borehole that gives 18 cubic metres of water per day,” Mr Silali adds.

It has taken four months for the sweet potatoes to mature in what has turned out to be a bumper harvest. However, the crop was affected by floods in May, leading to a decline in the volume.

“Sweet potatoes do not require a lot of water. In addition, some weevils attacked the crop as they looked for water,” he explained.

BENEFICIARIES

Among the farm’s beneficiaries is Mr Jackson Akure, a resident of Kohoro village. The visually impaired 43-year-old says that all his 12 children and two wives depend on borehole water from the farm for drinking, cooking and other household uses.

“My goats also drink from here. With the farm being located here near the borehole, access to water in Kooliyoror has greatly improved,” Mr Akure says.

His family depends on the farm for food. “Both my wives come here to harvest the sweet potatoes and pluck the plant’s leaves, which serves as a vegetable. It is a farm that has transformed how we view food and our menu,” Mr Akure said.

He added that, initially, Kooliyoror residents depended solely on maize and milk for food, but now this has changed.

“The overdependence on maize had many challenges, especially during times of drought. The sweet potato project has taught us that there are many crops to try out here and, likewise, many ways to feed our families,” Mr Akure said with satisfaction.

His neighbour, Mr Silvester Ekai, a pastoralist with two wives and eight children, also says that the farm has been a safety net for his family.

“It is a new kind of food and I am happy that the children love it and it has helped to keep them healthy. We no longer have to forego meals for two nights every week as was often the case,” Mr Ekai explained.

TRANSITION

The food-for-assets project is in a transition period and, in January 2019, the Turkana County government is expected to fully take over its operations.

“We would like the county government to come on board and take up some of the roles,” said Mr Lochuch.

With an expansive land that covers over 64,782.3 square kilometres, there is great potential for Turkana to be food sufficient, but only if it bolsters water availability for irrigation agriculture.

The county has inadequate and unreliable rainfall amounting to an average of 200 millimetres per annum.

According to the Turkana County Annual Development Plan 2015-2016, the county needs to rehabilitate existing water schemes to increase their efficiency. Programmes aimed at protecting water catchment areas and harnessing water from Kerio, Malimalite, Tarach, Suguta, Kalapata and Turkwel rivers will also be of great importance.

However, these measures only exist in policy and have not been actualised.

In April 2017, the US government pumped Sh25 billion into underground water exploration in Turkana. Two aquifers were discovered near Lodwar and Lotikipi in 2013, with capacities of 10 and 200 billion cubic metres respectively.

In February 2017, Human Rights Watch raised the red flag over the dropping water levels in Lake Turkana, warning that this threatened to rob more than 500,000 people in Kenya and Ethiopia of their livelihoods.

In a statement, the international rights group said the dropping water level is a result of development of dams and plantations in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo Valley.

Lake Turkana’s water level has dropped by at least 1.5 metres since January 2015.