Former Turkana MCA vegetating villages in hunger war

Thousands of Turkana residents are still in dire need of relief food due to famine that followed prolonged drought.

County authorities say more than 600,000 people, across the county, are starving. Health experts blame the situation on unfavourable malnutrition rates which are above the accepted 15 per cent emergency threshold.

Locals in Katilu and Turkwel have, for years, been among the worst hit by famine, despite most of their villages having huge agricultural potential.

Extensive fields on either side of the Turkwel River are arable, but residents are yet to adopt crop farming. They still hold tight to pastoralism, a tradition prone to massive losses due theft during bandit raids and drought-related deaths.

A baseline survey of the two wards established that eight in 10 households have at least six people each, yet they do not produce food, forcing them to primarily rely on relief food from government and humanitarian agencies.

More than half of locals who have farms, noted that they could not afford three meals a day or enjoy a variety of nutritional foods due to the gap in knowledge of the best agricultural practices and nutritious vegetables.

Solution

Given the grim picture, a former nominated member of the County Assembly, Lillyrose Akori, in 2020 chose to be part of the solution after gaining knowledge through field visits across the world, and training in how to make Turkana food-secure and address malnutrition.

When we meet her at her home in Ng'arabat village, Katilu Ward, she is busy picking collard greens, spinach, capsicum and tomatoes to prepare dinner for her family.

As she ushers us into the farm, she notes that during her break from active politics, she wondered what she could do to continue changing lives in her community.

“I realised food insecurity was still rampant as many households went to bed hungry. Those who have access to food lack some nutrients, especially due to scarcity of fresh fruits and vegetables,” says Ms Akori, who chairs a local group she founded.

In August 2020, she shared the idea at a public baraza in the village and 34 people agreed to embrace farming. She had also acquired some knowledge from farmers at the nearby Katilu Irrigation Scheme.

Initially, it was not a walk in the park as they had to manually clear a dense thicket using pangas, slashers and jembes. After tilling, they also unblocked sections of the silted secondary canals to direct water onto their farm as they had no capacity to get water directly from the Turkwel River, or main canals to Katilu Irrigation Scheme.

"We first planted spinach and tomatoes after contributing to buy seeds. We didn't use fertiliser as the soil is fertile. Within two to three months, we had fresh vegetables from our own farm," the former MCA says.

"We were also selling to other villagers, making just enough money to buy different varieties of food, pay school fees and buy medicine."

Household incomes

On realising the project was boosting household incomes, they expanded their two-and-a-half acre farm.

“Our hard work was rewarded when PanAfricare organisation, through support from Bayer Fund, visited the farm, assessed its potential and trained us on nutrition-sensitive agriculture, a food-based approach to agricultural development that puts nutritionally rich foods, dietary diversity, and food fortification at the heart of overcoming malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies,” she says.

They used buckets to water their crops but were soon given a diesel-operated generator. They added amaranthus, black nightshade and okra, among other vegetables, to boost consumption of nutrients-rich food at the household level.

Ms Akori says they are still benefitting from a five-year PanAfricare's Improved Approach to Community-based Nutrition (Impact) programme launched in 2018 to advance a multi-sectoral integrated response to improve nutrition and access to healthy foods for mothers and young children. The two wards are leading by example in the fight against malnutrition.

“We are also empowering more women to embrace farming including those in Korinyang village, a kilometre away,” she says.

We visit the village on a Sunday morning and witness a fenced cone garden unit with an expansive compound, at Korinyang Dispensary in Katilu Ward. In cone gardening, soil is arranged in a conical shape to create more space for crops above the ground. 

We meet a group of women busy working. Some are filling up two elevated tanks on a woody stand made from readily available prosopis julifulora poles, while others remove weeds that are choking the plants on cones. They pluck some for consumption.

Jastine Eregae, lead mother for Korinyang Unit, inspects the cones to ensure the vegetables, including amaranth, cowpeas, spinach and green grams, get adequate water from the drips connected with the tanks.

Ms Eregae says the garden has eased her job of ensuring the group, which consists of lactating mothers, pregnant mothers and those with children under the age of five, remain healthy.

"I used to spend my time talking to women about the importance of nutritious vegetables in their diet but couldn't practically explain how. But with the cone gardens, they are the ones now planting and managing the crops after realising how healthy their children have become," she says.

Cone gardening

She explains that she told the women to have kitchen gardens at their homes but they could not due to lack of water.

Ms Eregae says that during a visit to Lodwar, she encountered cone gardening whose advantages she lists as requiring less water, less labour and high yield on limited space.

"I shared the idea with PanAfricare organisation and we identified Korinyang Dispensary as the most suitable site for the project. Through their expertise, seeds and even training in how to cook some vegetables to ensure they don't lose nutrients, we now have a garden of our own," she says.

Bayer's Corporate Engagement Lead Jimmy Kiberu, says while these developments in food production, access, consumption patterns, and access to healthcare services are impressive and should be widely acknowledged, there is room for more to be done.

Mr Kiberu says Bayer will continue championing improved health and food systems in drought-prone areas as a lasting solution.

“Advancing health and nutrition is what we do best and care about most. The solutions we create will advance life tomorrow and help people and the planet to thrive," he says.

Anthony Maina, Bayer’s head of communications Southeast Africa Region said with people living longer and the population growing, everyone wants to stay healthy and have enough to eat.

“We work closely with stakeholders in the agriculture and health sectors to achieve our goals. We are in the process of significantly increasing our activity in the region.”

[email protected]