Katilia, March 14, 2024 (Public Communication and Media Relations)
The County Government and the USAID implementing partners visited the Elelea Irrigation Scheme in Katilia Ward, Turkana East to strengthen the integration aspect of the cross-county knowledge exchange activity.
Elelea Scheme was deliberately picked from the other projects the partners and the county are doing so that it is used as an avenue to sequence, layer, review, and integrate the programmatic activities with county priorities after agreeing on strategic areas for improvement.
The chair of the Partnership for Resilience and Economic Growth (PREG), who is also the Field Director of USAID Nawiri, Gabriel Ekuwam, said that the Elelea irrigation scheme was strategically picked among other projects supported by NAWIRI in Turkana East, as it has seen 760 acres reclaimed for agriculture from the colonization of the Prosopis Juliflora and Prosopis chilensis
“The irrigation scheme provides a cross-sectoral platform to learn and identify opportunities for leveraging, on what other partners are doing. This is geared towards eliminating duplication. We also jointly monitor the implementation progress of the USAID programs with the County Government. USAID Nawiri has supported farmers to reclaim land for more than 1200 households to be food secure in fighting malnutrition in the area.” Director Ekuwam said.
The PREG Partners are all those organisations which USAID funds to implement projects in Turkana County.
During the field visit at Elelea, the PREG partners and the County Government staff engaged the community on issues of food security at the household level.
The County Director of Agriculture Aaron Nanok, lauded the cross-county knowledge learning activity by the PREG as the only pathway partners and government can sequence, layer, and integrate programs.
He added that the government has deployed several extension officers including interns to support extension services in Elelea and the rest of irrigation schemes in Turkana East.
“In addition to what the partners have done, the county has lined 400 acres for the irrigation canal. We have also trained 200 farmers on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Conservation agriculture,” Director Nanok said.
Significantly, he empathised with crop diversification with the intent to reduce malnutrition cases reported among the farming community.
Apart from subsistence farming, the team agreed that the government and partners need to prioritise commercialising Agriculture which results in income generation for the farmers.
The cross-learning event comes barely two months since the PREG partners went for a similar activity in Isiolo, Samburu, and Marsabit Counties.
