A visit to Nadir group farm in Garissa county tells a different story from the insecurity, drought and food scarcity issues that people have become accustomed to.
It’s a beehive of activity as farmers harvest tomatoes while on another part of the farm an agriculture extension officer is busy explaining and answering questions from farmers who have visited the farm. The 120 acre farm in Kamuthe location in Fafi constituency provides food and money to about 120 agro-pastrolists.
Yusuf Nadir Abdulahi, chairman of the group says he lost his livestock to drought and decided to venture into farming. He uses water from Tana River through canal irrigation. He grows bananas, onions and tomatoes which he sells in Garissa and Masalani towns.
Yusuf sells one banana at Sh10 and Sh5 in Garissa and Masalani respectively making about Sh20,000. From the sale of tomatoes which he harvests after every three months he makes Sh60,000.
“I am able to pay school fees for my children and take care of other expenses. Many of the farmers have even been able to start small businesses and build permanent houses which were not common as many of us are nomads,” he says.
“We no longer rely on donations from the government or donors as we can provide food for our family and earn an income from the farming venture,” he adds.
Yusuf says they have enough water, the soil is good for farming and people are willing and ready to till the land.
They are however faced with the challenge of wildlife especially wild pigs that destroy their crops. He says the pigs are a menace and farmers have to fence and stay alert to keep off the animals. Transporting the produce to Garissa and Masalani is expensive due to poor roads.
“I pay Sh400 to transport a bag of bananas but if the roads were good, this would be cheaper and I would be able to fetch more from the sale of the fruit,” he explains.
According to Yusuf, the group has 120 members with each farmer planting an acre of land. Most of the farmers plant bananas, melons, pawpaws, tomatoes, onions and vegetables like cowpea leaves. He urges other pastrolists to try farming and not to rely on livestock alone.
It is estimated that Garissa has 44,100 acres of land along the Tana River Basin and only 5121 acres of land along the basin is currently under irrigation, mainly of horticultural crops such as banana, mango, tomato, water melon, onion, pawpaw, and chillies.
Womankind Kenya, an indigenous local non-governmental organisation based in Garissa has walked the journey with the farmers and supported them with fruit seedlings and also dug boreholes for them in their homesteads.
Abdi Omar Farah, coordinator, Kenya Pastoralists Network for Children says this is predominantly a pastrolists community that relies on natural resources and rain, but due to climate change, this is no longer sustainable hence the community is slowly losing their livelihoods.
“Animals have bigger challenges such as drought and market and you may have 500 to 1000 cattle but you are still food insecure. I think opening other avenues of alternative sources of livelihoods like farming is the way to go,” says Omar.
He notes that through farming, the community has a fall back when there is drought and no pasture for livestock.
The county government, Omar says, should inject a lot of investment on such alternative sources of livelihood for pastoral communities.
“The county government should make these alternatives practical for these communities. There is also need for technical know-how and capacity building since farming is a new venture to them,” notes Omar. He adds that farming positively impacts on the health of both women and children who sometimes suffer from malnutrition and this has a negative effect on education.
“Focus on farming will greatly improve nutrition and the health status of women and children in the county. This will result in the prevalence of common diseases lessening,” Omar states adding that poverty levels which according to the demographic survey is at 60 to 75 percent will also reduce.
