The government plans to hand over 10,000 acres of land in the Galana-Kulalu food security project to private companies and the Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) to help cultivate maize and other cash crops to help alleviate food shortages.
The project’s implementer, the National Irrigation Authority (NIA), is set to hand over the project to the ADC, which will be entirely in charge of the project’s commercial operations in the coming months.
The announcement comes just a few days after Coast region governors requested that the national government allow the region’s six counties to oversee the 1.7 million-acre irrigation project.
The county leaders want the Jumuiya ya Kaunti za Pwani (JKP) economic bloc, led by Gideon Mung’aro (Kilifi), to take over the failed project and battle hunger in the area, which has been heavily impacted by a severe drought.
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The project, which is being carried out in the counties of Kilifi and Tana River, was allegedly run down by the ADC and NIA, according to Governors Mung’aro and Abdulswamad Nassir (Mombasa), who argued that the counties should be permitted to take over the project from the two state agencies.
Concerns about the project’s feasibility were raised when the NIA gathered roughly 103,000 bags of maize from the model farm’s first phase, where 5,000 acres of the crop were planted.
According to NIA spokesperson Daniel Nzonzo, the authority is about to finish installing irrigation infrastructure before handing over the project.
“After an Israeli company abandoned the project due to a misunderstanding with the previous administration over contractual disagreements, a Kenyan firm took over the project as other research institutes continue finding suitable crops and varieties to be planted in the area,” Mr Nzozo said.
“We are happy to say the contractor is about to conclude and less than two percent is remaining, which can be completed in a few days.”
“As it stands, we are ready to hand over the project even tomorrow to a private firm once they meet the requirements. We are expecting the current government and ministry concerned to issue the communication soon,” he added.
However, the Irrigation Act 2019 may prevent county governments from operating large farms because the law only allows them to operate irrigation farms of less than 100,000 acres.
According to the NIA, none of the 47 counties has any irrigation development boards, which are necessary for a county to be permitted to manage an irrigation project.
Mr Nzozo stated that the initial contractor, Israel’s Green Arava, had established infrastructure for 5,100 acres before the NIA took over and began implementing the project in collaboration with Kenyan contractor Irrico International.
