Ponds work wonders for farms in arid land

In an area where rains are often insufficient and highly unreliable, Mrs Gladys Kivoto’s farm in Mutomo, Kitui County stands out like the biblical Canaan, with healthy and flourishing crops, some ready for harvesting.

Kivoto’s has divided her farm into different sections for onions, tomatoes, butternuts, spinach and pawpaws.

Unlike other farmers in the arid and semi-arid (Asal) region who rely on rain-fed agriculture with near-zero results, Kivoto has invested in farm ponds to collect water run off during rainy seasons. It is this water that she uses to irrigate crops by drip irrigation.

“It is a simple and effective method of collecting rainwater and storing it for use when the rains are gone. All you need is to dig a farm pond and cover it with a liner to ensure there is no seepage,” explains Kivoto.

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Drip irrigation

Her farm has three sizable ponds, which have made her a reputable farmer and whose farm gates are open for others to get lessons.

One corner of the farm is a section for butternuts. At one and half months old, the healthy sheet of leaves covering the ground is visible from a distance. The crops are under drip irrigation, and this is by design.

“We use drip irrigation to ensure minimal use of water for maximum yield. With this method, the water drops are only deposited at the root of each crop, so there is no wastage,” she says.

The crop takes three months to mature. In about a month, the farmer says she expects to harvest two tonnes of butternut. With a single piece going for Sh80, she will rake in a fortune.

Yet in another section she has about half an acre under onions at different stages.

“We have already started harvesting the onions. Some of it is ready,” she says, plucking a healthy bunch from the ground. Currently, a kilo of onions is retailing at between Sh120 and Sh150.

By the time she harvests all her onion crop, Kivoto estimates that she will earn slightly over Sh1 million. And this is from experience.

“Towards the end of last year, I harvested a small part of the onion crop, which earned me Sh200,000. This really encouraged me to go commercial,” she states, adding that the beauty with onions is that one can inter-crop with maize.

“It is not labour-intensive and it takes only three months to mature. One can do it three times in a year,” she explains.

The farmer has also ventured into pawpaw farming, another high-yielding crop with good market.

Pawpaw plants

Currently she has 1,500 pawpaw trees, some at formative stages, but a good number bubbling under the weight of ready fruits. A pawpaw plant can yield between 30 and 50 fruits, she says, and each fruit sells at between Sh60 and Sh100.

She uses pesticides for the pawpaws to ward off pests such as the white flies, which often attack the fruits.

Other than the routine pesticides, Kivoto says her farm venture, which she co-runs with her husband, is easy to manage and with good returns, more so because the local soils are fertile and do not need fertilisers.

“Our soils are fertile. What we need is only water and any crop can grow and flourish,” she says. Once in a while she uses compost manure from another part of her farm, where she keeps poultry and cattle.

So what is her overall investment?

The farmer says she spent Sh80,000 to acquire a set of drip pipes. She also bought four 10,000-litre plastic water tanks, which are erected on raised ground, and where water from the ponds is pumped to, then let loose on the crops through gravity.

Each of the farm ponds has a liner. At Sh34,000 per liner, this might look a bit expensive for an ordinary farmer, but Kivoto says it is a worthy investment.

“However you need to get the thickness of the liner correct and you are assured of water throughout the year. It is a very efficient water conservation method,” says her husband, Mike Kivoto, who describes himself as the ‘technician’ behind the wonder technology.

When everything is set, the couple says they only need to have two farm hands to check on crop husbandry.

The relevance of water harvesting for Kitui County and other Asal areas cannot be gainsaid, thus Mr Kivoto encourages other farmers in the semi-arid county to take up the initiative at household level and build food security as well as for commercial purposes. “This is the most cost-benefit project any local farmer can undertake. It is a sure way of food production, with commercial benefits. It is all about thinking creatively,” he points out.

He says farm ponds are cost effective and efficient way of harvesting water unlike boreholes which are expensive to sink and which, in the case of Kitui county turn saline or dry up after sometime.