Rael Kimathi uses drip irrigation to grow green vegetables and tomatoes on her small farm.

by Teresa Mellish

Rael Kimathi is a very good farmer. Her homestead has many trees and her crops always look the best in the area, even in the drought. Her farm is located beside the Muchui Business Centre and she is both a sponsor of the Centre and benefits from the technologies at the Centre. She is member of the Muchui Womens Group and her daughter, Salome, works at the Muchui Business Centre. She has donated a piece of land to the Muchui Womens Group for the “mother plot” where they have planted the improved varieties of macadamia, passion fruit, bananas and mangoes to be used for grafting.

She is now building a big greenhouse on her farm- which will use drip irrigation to grow tomatoes for sale. She is already scaling up the technology Farmers Helping Farmers introduced to the Muchui Womens Group

When I visited the Kiirua district last week, it was dry and very windy. No crops were growing and the area did not receive the last rains. Rains are expected in mid-October and always optimistic farmers are plowing and preparing the land to sow seeds before the rain.

This is where the members of the Muchui Womens Group farm. Each of the members has a water tank and most of them are hooked up to the water pipe which brings water from Mount Kenya into the area. However there is no rain water in the tanks and it is expensive to purchase water from the water pipes; it costs 250 Kenya shillings (CAD$4) to fill the 4600 litre water tank. Consequently water is used frugally and sparingly.

It was so wonderful to see some green crops amidst the otherwise brown vegetation on the three farms I visited. These farms are using drip irrigation in their kitchen gardens to grow kale for home consumption. As a result, the diets of these families includes kale, served in the form of “sukuma wiki”- much like boiled spinach or swiss chard with onions.

We also saw drip irrigation in the small greenhouses which are being used to grow tomatoes for home consumption and for sale. The variety of tomatoes has been developed for greenhouses. Rael Kimathi said she has already sold tomatoes worth 1000 shillings.

The drip irrigation pipes lay on the ground and have a small hole at spaced intervals to allow water to drip out at exactly the same place as one kale plant is located. No water is lost to evaporation.

This has been possible for two reasons. The technology and materials for drip irrigation are available in Kenya because of the large scale greenhouses used to grow vegetables and flowers for export from Kenya. When we were in Kenya in January, 2007, we found a supplier of the pipes for the Muchui Women members.

Six donors to our 2006 Christmas campaign each donated $100 for a vegetable garden for a family. We used these funds to set up the six greenhouses at the homes of six members of the Muchui Womens Group to demonstrate the drip irrigation.

As a result, all of the 62 Muchui group members now want drip irrigation!! Martin, horticulturist at the Muchui Business Centre, priced the drip irrigation materials for the members. The 1200 shillings required to purchase the drip materials was obtained by selling maize to the Business Centre and providing an additional 300 shillings each.

We continue to be amazed by the willingness of the Muchui Group members to try new technology. These women are traditional farmers who are not in a position to risk anything. There are several women in the group, such as Rael Kimathi. who are exceptionally good farmers and who are always the first to try new methods. The others see the new technology and then are willing to use it on their farms. Our lesson is that with appropriate technology and financial support direct to the farms, we can help improve the quality of their lives.

We will continue to work with these women to identify new crops and different ways for them to grow food to support their families.