Village gets new lease of life as farmers reap from Sh230m project

Mbeyu Mumbo, at her farm in Nyalani, Kwale County.

Once dependent on relief food, Nyalani village has now become a food basket in Kwale County.

With its large stretches of white coral sandy beaches, Kwale is a popular tourist destination and a desirable location for holiday homes for the wealthy.

However, for the residents, poverty reigns supreme and unemployment is high. The region faces many challenges, among them being drought and food insecurity.

Located Southwest of Mombasa County with a population of 866,820, Kwale is classified as an Arid and Semi-Arid (ASAL) area. Relief supplies have consistently been the hope for this community.

“I have been farming for more than 10 years, the harvest has mostly been dependent on rains which fail most of the time. It does not matter the size of land one cultivated,” says Pili Omari, a resident of Nyalani village.

Evident life

But the small village in Kinango constituency is now changing this narrative. Now there is evident life in the village. More stone and brick houses are under construction, a shift from the common mud structures, an indication of changing economic status.

Pili is one of the 100 farmers in Nyalani practising agribusiness, following a partnership between the M-Pesa Foundation and the Kwale County government to rehabilitate the dilapidated Nyalani dam at a cost of Sh232 million.

“Since we started micro-irrigation, there has been a major shift in my economic status and health. I grow vegetables for my family’s consumption and sell the surplus. Now I can pay school fees for my children,” says the 47-year-old mother of five.

The dam was built in 1952 by the British colonial government as a water reservoir, but was later abandoned following challenging climatic conditions and poor maintenance. After the rehabilitation in 2014, the dam now has a water storage capacity of about 500 million litres for irrigation, domestic and livestock use.

“The integrated nature of Nyalani dam is useful in providing water for domestic use, enhancing nutrition to Nyalani people and most importantly bosting agribusinesst. It is a part of a wider strategy to improve livelihoods in Kwale County to end the perpetual vulnerability,” says Governor Salim Mvurya.

“Our vision is to have a competitive county that can sustain itself and part of sustaining livelihoods is ensuring people have income. We have a bigger plan for the region. We will put up facilities that can promote irrigation programmes.”

The farmers have formed Nyalani Farmers’ Cooperative Society Limited that links them up to markets. “We have a 170-acre piece of community land. Every interested member of the community gets a quarter acre to farm. Currently we have at least 100 farmers participating,” says society Chairman Rashid Kitoka.

Silas Langat is an Agricultural Systems Engineer at Farm Concern International, the project implementing partner. He has been working on this project, supporting the technical irrigation requirements of the scheme.

“We want to install solar power for the scheme. This will assure us of a constant supply of power, reduce operation costs by up to 90 per cent and increase net return to the farmers,” he says, adding that they will set up 320 solar panels. The M-Pesa Foundation has injected in an extra Sh12 million for the solar project.