She quit her job to start farm in dry region, has no regrets

Lydia Kinyua (right) and farm workers, harvesting snow peas at her JULY farm in Lewa area in Buuri Sub County along the Nanyuki-Isiolo road in Meru County. Lydiah was an administrator at a local university but last September, after 27 years of employment, she decided to quit her job to venture into farming. She practices irrigation farming at her 10-acre farm and grows onions and snow peas. [Darlington Manyara, Standard].

After 27 years of employment, Lydia Kinyua quit her job as a counselling psychologist and got into farming. The 50-year-old has sub-divided her 10-acre farm into two; she grows crops in one portion and rears poultry and dairy cows in another.

She had to part with Sh3 million – a combination of her savings and severance pay –to develop the farm situated on the Nanyuki-Isiolo road in Meru County. The farm being in the semi-arid Lewa area in Buuri Sub County, the farmer had to sink a borehole, which she said consumed most of her investments in the farm.