Devolution and Planning Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri and his Water and Irrigation counterpart Eugene Wamalwa have kicked off a 2-day tour to commission water and irrigation projects in Turkana, West Pokot and Baringo counties.
The commissioning of the projects will increase acreage under irrigation as part of the Jubilee Government’s strategy to achieve 1 million acres for the National Food Security.
In Turkana South Sub County the Cabinet Secretaries commissioned the Loyapat Irrigation project which covers 150 acres and costed 70 million.
Turkana community being a pastoral community has been largely depended on relief food throughout the year but the commissioning of the irrigation project aims at changing the lives of the people to food farmers.
Speaking after commissioning the irrigation scheme at Kainuk in Turkana South Sub County CS Kiunjuri said the Jubilee agenda is to ensure that nobody should go hungry thus his ministry has been tasked to feed the nation.
“We are putting more than 150 acres of land in this region under irrigation scheme, people from Turkana community have made up their minds to focus on farming now that peace has resumed at the border of West Pokot and Turkana counties” said Kiunjuri.
He said the project started back in the year 2011 through community participation but the implementation faced several challenges especially insecurity between the Turkana and Pokot communities within the project vicinity and wildlife menace on crop production.
Kerio Valley Development Authority KVDA, devolution ministry in collaboration with the agriculture and irrigation ministry decided to revive and rehabilitate the project in 2014-2015 due to peace that is now experienced at the border.
Kiunjuri added that the project has already provided employment opportunities to the community as more than 500 youths are now engaged in the farms.
“We have only done 20 acres of land if we irrigate the remaining 130 acres will add more employment thus reducing idlers and increasing production of food” he said.
He said the irrigation project is one way of solving the conflict between the Pokot and Turkana communities and it will reduce the number of people who depend on relief food.
“This enhances cohesion, children will now go to school because the food from the farm will be feeding learners, very soon we will be surprised Turkana County turning into the bread basket of this country” he added.
CS Wamalwa said through consolidated efforts his ministry is trying to open new bread baskets in the country and increase production and productivity in regions that have not been exploited before, Turkana County being one of them.
“We have been transporting maize from Trans-Nzoia County to Turkana and transporting fish from Turkana to Trans -Nzoia, we need to change this and expand on potential irrigation schemes to reduce hunger cases.” said Wamalwa.
Area Member of Parliament James Lomenen asked the national government to fund reformed warriors to be in cooperated in the irrigation project because they have temporarily silenced the guns and have substituted the firearms with spades and jembes.
“The pressure from the reformed Morans is too loud, they fought for decades but they are always hungry, engaging them in farming activities will give them an alternative way of livelihood” he said.
The project which is being managed by KVDA seeks to empower reformed cattle rustlers to undertake agri business ventures.
KVDA chairman Sam Kona said the project is a greater contributor of peace in the region compared to the past years whereby the two communities could value fighting and loose lives.
“When there was no peace KVDA could spend 4 million paying Kenya police reservist to man the farms if the 4 million could be channeled to a water pan then our people could have developed long time ago” said Kona.
The pilot project is expected to produce 300 tonnes of maize within 4 months and more than 400 people will no longer be sleeping hungry.
