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For many years Mrs. Leah Kiptarus from Kapteren village Keiyo North sub county engaged in brewing of chang’aa to help her husband bring up their family. It was a life full of chaos, she says as she was constantly in conflict with the law.
Mrs. Kiptarus says fights would erupt anytime at her home as drunk men and women fought while most of the money she made would go to paying fines whenever she was arrested. But all this is in her past now after the government through the Kerio Valley Development Authority (KVDA) embarked on the rehabilitation of Etio dam.
Being tired of the chaos that characterized her life, Mrs. Kiptarus saw an opportunity to better her life and started cooking for the workers. “For the one year the dam was under construction, I used to make Sh.19,000 every week,” she said.
The money assisted her to take one of her children to the Kenya Medical Training College. After getting money through legal means, she didn’t look back.
As she cooked for the workers she also started growing traditional vegetables but it became quite tedious as during the dry season she would be forced to fetch water to water the plants from the family borehole.
When the dam was completed early this year, she was overjoyed as she bought pipes and embarked on farming of traditional vegetables locally known as managu which she used to sell from traders from neighbouring Uasin Gishu county.
“This area gets very dry especially in the first months of the year with the prices of vegetables sky rocketing. With irrigation from the dam, I was able to make Sh.5,000 every week from the sale of managu,” she proudly narrated.
This planting season, Mrs, Kiptarus has diversified to the growing of capsicum and as she says, she is now a role model in her village. “My home is at peace, I no longer fear being arrested thanks to the dam and I have time to engage in social activities,” she says as she rushes to join other women in playing football.
Edwin Tarus a BA education graduate of Masinde Muliro university has also been using the water from the dam to engage in growing of cabbages, kales and managu. He says he earns between Sh25,000-Sh30,000 a month.
“This may look like little to some people but remember that I do not pay rent, nor spend money on transport plus I get most of the food from the farm,” he said.
Tarus who graduated in 2019 says he grew up in the farm with his father who was a teacher introducing him to farming which he says is so satisfying especially due to the fact that he is his own boss.
Tarus is calling on his fellow youth to consider farming instead of waiting for the elusive white collar jobs saying it has better returns.
And for 24-year-old Justus Kiplimo, the dam couldn’t have come at a better time. Kiplimo who sat for his KCSE in 2021 like many youths started a bodaboda business. But with increasing competition and the other challenges associated with the business like the cold, he transitioned to farming.
Kiplimo says he engages in passion farming and is able to make ends meet. The youth harvests up to 50 kilogrammes of the fruit every week and with a kg going for Sh.70 he is able to make Sh3,500. He remains optimistic that the prices will improve adding he intends to expand his venture using the water from the dam in order to make more profits.
Idi Mubarak Kipchirchir an avocado farmer says the dam is a game changer in the area saying solar panels are used to pump the water to the farms. He says previously they used to wake up at 4.00am in the morning during the dry season to get water from streams in the area to water their farms using watering cans and therefore it was difficult for one to expand their farming ventures.
Kipchirchir says he is practicing agro forestry with 170 avocado trees plus a nursery which has fruit, exotic and indigenous seedlings adding that he also grows short season crops like pyrethrum and vegetables as he can comfortably do irrigation using water from Etio dam.
The KVDA MD Sammy Naporos says he is happy that farmers from the area have already embraced irrigation using water from the Sh80 million dam to mitigate against drought.
Naporos said this is the direction the government has adopted of constructing medium size dams which are cost effective and meet the needs of farmers noting they are projecting that farmers in the area will be earning Sh200,000 per acre per season.
The MD said the dam will serve 4,500 households and irrigate approximately 6,000 hectares in addition to supplying water for domestic use to Kapteren and Simotwo villages. He added that soon, they would embark on the second phase of the project which will cost Sh150 million.
“The second phase will include the desilting of the dam to provide more water and the construction of mega tanks to supply water to Kessup, Tambach and far areas like Cheptebo and Rimoi in the Kerio Valley,” he said.
To conserve the Kessup eco system, the MD said KVDA will establish a nursery to provide fruit and tree seedlings to farmers adding that on July 12th during the commissioning of the dam by the President, a total of 30,000 avocado seedlings will be distributed.
He added that as part of their efforts to ensure that farmers diversify their economic activities, KVDA had already trained farmers on fish farming and will soon provide them with fingerlings.
Naporos said KVDA had also desilted Yokot dam in the same sub county saying with the two dams, the area will have adequate water not only for irrigation but also for domestic use.
The MD says the dam is not only contributing to provision of employment opportunities but also food security which are key in the government’s Bottom up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA).
