Conflicts in Kenya complicate pursuit of irrigation projects

As Kenya launches irrigation projects to boost agricultural self-sufficiency and food security, the government should take care to prevent tensions over land and water in conflict-prone arid zones, observers warn.

• An armed Turkana herdsman guards livestock at a watering hole in north-western Kenya in March 2006. Armed raids and cattle rustling in Kenya's arid lands have recently led to confrontations and fatalities. [Tony Karumba/AFP]
  
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  A dead bull that suffered several bullet wounds lies in front of burnt-out huts in Kilelengwani village in Kenya's Tana River Delta after clashes between the Pokomo and Orma tribes in 2012. [Carl de Souza/AFP]
  

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When President Uhuru Kenyatta assumed office on April 9th, he vowed that his Jubilee Coalition government would work to turn farming into an income-generating sector and promote national food security.
At the official opening of the Agricultural Society of Kenya on July 5th, Kenyatta said his government would prioritise irrigation.
"Although our country is endowed with enormous water resources which can be harnessed for irrigation, most agricultural production in Kenya is rain-fed," he said. "It is not acceptable that we have only irrigated 15% of our irrigable land. It is for this reason that one of our commitments in the Jubilee manifesto is to put an additional one million acres under irrigation over the next five years."
As such, National Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich announced in June that the government allocated 8 billion shillings ($92 million) in this year's budget for irrigation schemes nationwide. County governments later unveiled their own budgets, in which they set aside additional money for exploiting agricultural potential within their jurisdictions.

Irrigation and the nomadic lifestyle

But the national government's irrigation initiative could potentially cause insecurity in volatile and dry areas largely inhabited by nomadic tribes, such as the east and north-east, said Ahmed Hassan, who works with the Kenya Livestock Marketing Council in Garissa.
"The nomads are unique people with an unimaginably tough lifestyle. Herding is a way of eking a livelihood from very poor land," he told Sabahi. "The nomads have remained defiant and conservative despite sporadic drought, livestock diseases and climate change that threaten their traditional ways."
Pastoralists are not entirely against mass-food production initiatives, but nomads have reacted negatively to an influx of farmers, whom they see as threatening their access to grazing lands, Hassan said.
"With the government announcement of large-scale irrigation, it means more land will be set aside for the purposes of producing food," he said.
Before embarking on these projects, the government and stakeholders should put into place a mechanism for preventing any related conflicts, Hassan said. This is important because counties targeted for irrigation have seen many cases of violent struggles between pastoralists and farmers over limited supplies of water and arable land.
"Some of the incidences have been sparked with people fencing off small portions of land to start a little farming. So you can imagine what can happen when large-scale irrigation starts," Hassan said.
Nairobi-based security consultant and retired army Major Wilberforce Onchiri said that although the planned irrigation schemes are well-intentioned, they could spark violence like the Tana River Delta clashes, which killed more than 150 people last year and early this year.
A Judicial Commission of Inquiry report into these clashes identified conflict over resources between Pokomo farmers and Orma pastoralists as the main cause for the bloodletting.
"Violence between the two clans flares up from time to time and has escalated in cycles since 2000 when Pokomos and other investors -- both Kenyan and foreign -- started acquiring vast tracts of land along the Tana River for the purpose of large-scale cultivation of food," Onchiri told Sabahi.
"Conflict flares up when the pastoralists perceive that the farms block access to the river. During drought, the Orma camp near the river banks and occasionally the animals stray to the Pokomo farms, sparking an all-out fight," he said.
Tensions also arise when one group tries to get the other to adapt to its own form of livelihood, said Abdullahi Boru Halakhe, Horn of Africa analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Because land has been a source of contention in most of the country's conflicts, the national and county governments have a duty to bring different communities in affected areas together and involve everyone in the process, he said.
"To avoid the violence, the government should organise public discussions to chart the way forward on how the resources can be utilised for the benefit of both parties. Some projects are good on paper, but they should not be imposed on the community without its participation," he told Sabahi.

Millions of jobs on the horizon

The irrigation project is expected to create more than 4 million jobs within five years, according to National Irrigation Board (NIB) Chief Executive Officer Daniel Barasa.
"The communities in the targeted areas are very important stakeholders," he told Sabahi." We will continue engaging the community so that we have a common ground on development. There will be a lot of factors that will be considered including the environmental impact of the projects."
The irrigation project -- which the NIB will implement with the Kenyan Agricultural Development Corporation -- includes plans to construct mega reservoirs for collecting rain water for use during the dry season, Barasa told Sabahi.
Wajir County Governor Ahmed Abdullahi said that irrigating the area will spur agricultural development, which will increase food security.
"We are confident that the communities will buy into the idea of implementing the initiative because during our political campaigns we promised to initiate large-scale irrigation to tackle food insecurity," he said.
"We will provide training and equipment to farmers in a bid to encourage food production," he told Sabahi, adding that the county will initially target people who lost their livestock to drought.
So far residents in targeted areas have welcomed the project for providing an alternate way of making a living.
"[Animal farming] is already facing challenges and some of us are ready for an alternative," 42-year-old Abdirizak Hussein Abdi, who owns 500 livestock in Garissa County including cattle, camels, sheep and goat.
"In any new venture, there always is the initial resistance by conservatives. But depending on its economic viability, it will be gradually accepted," he said, adding that the government should involve the community and clan leaders.
Abdi Farah Yussuf, a 49-year-old Mandera County resident, told Sabahi that his family lost all of its livestock to recurring drought over the last 25 years.
"I ventured into small-scale farming along the Daua River about three years ago," he said. "The benefits of agriculture outweigh livestock rearing. We welcome the government move because it will tackle the famine we constantly experience."