Kenya is known to be largely a water scarce country.
Large parts of Kenya are arid and semi arid lands. From North Eastern to eastern to parts of former Nyanza province are very dry.
Nakuru is one of those areas in the Rift Valley where water is a scarce commodity. The lands of Nakuru county are largely fertile but unreliable rain makes them difficult to utilize to their optimum levels.
One of my Neighbors has given up on crop farming and opted for growing grass for hay making. He cited high costs of farming as the main reason for the change of plan.
The government of the day should make life easier for the small and medium scale farmers by putting in place the relevant infrastructure such as all weather roads, water for irrigation and make available farming knowledge for effective farming. If Israel made it on a desert, then we can also make it in farming despite the water scarcity that we are facing.
Israelis pioneered the use of drip irrigation as an efficient use of the rare commodity which is water. We can also invested in water harvesting and storage technologies in order to get the maximum benefits from our farms.
We need to invest on small dams to harvest surface run off water during the rainy season for use later during the dry seasons. Some of these dams can collect water without investing on Damliners. However, if your dam does not hold water you have to invest on the same.
Security
In any business you have to think of ways of security your property. The first thing that you must do for security of our farm is fencing. Once you fence a farm, you send a strong signal to trespassers that’s you are in serious business and you only allow entry and exit in the designated points.
To advance security further, you will need to invest on dogs. These have to be trained on how to deal with tress-passers and thieves. I recommend German Shepards if you are in agribusiness. These dogs if well trained can enhance security and keep unwanted characters at bay.
Mechanization
Many people associate farming with hard labor under the hot sun and meager earning from the associated activities. We can change that mindset by investing on mechanization. Let’s embrace use of tractors for tilling farms, pumps for pushing water from the small dams to the crops on the farm and other technologies to make life easier and more enjoyable on the farm.
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