But the landscape changes as you approach Kabaa Irrigation Scheme.
Suddenly, the brown gives way to green. Vast pieces of land are dotted with bananas heavy with fruit, oranges glowing beneath the trees and rows of vegetables stretching across the farms. The Athi River, flowing through the region, has become a lifeline for hundreds of farmers who are turning an otherwise dry landscape into a thriving agricultural hub.
It is an unexpected sight. In a place where water is scarce, there is an abundance of food.
At Anthony Mbatha’s farm, that abundance is on full display. The minute you walk into his compound, you encounter a group of women working together. Some carry buckets of water and soap, while others wash and sort freshly harvested French beans. The beans have come from Anthony’s 40-acre farm, where horticulture provides both food and income for his family and the community around him.
Yet beneath the sight of a thriving farm lies a challenge that could determine just how far Anthony and other farmers at Kabaa can go: access to affordable irrigation.
“There is a great market for the crop. Our biggest challenge is the water to irrigate, Machakos being an arid region,” Anthony says. To irrigate just 2.5 acres of his 40-acre farm twice a week, Anthony spends about KSh 8,000. The cost makes it difficult to bring the entire farm under production, despite the availability of land and a ready market for his French beans. “With a solar pump, we would be able to save money, and with a cooling room we would be able to get better prices for the French beans,” he says.
Anthony’s experience reflects the realities of many farmers at the scheme. Kabaa Irrigation Scheme has 350 registered members cultivating approximately 340 hectares of land. Farmers grow a diverse range of crops, including French beans, maize, kales, oranges and bananas, with the average farmer cultivating about two acres.
But production is only one part of the challenge. For French bean farmers, what happens after harvest can determine whether a good crop translates into a good return.
The crop has a ready market, but market conditions are not always predictable. When buyers are unavailable or prices fall, farmers can be left with produce that continues to mature in the field and eventually loses its marketability.
French beans can be stored for up to 21 days under appropriate cold storage conditions. For farmers at Kabaa, a cold room could therefore provide something they currently lack: time.
Instead of being forced to sell immediately, farmers could harvest at the right time, store their produce and wait for more favourable market conditions. This would help reduce post-harvest losses while giving farmers greater flexibility in accessing markets.
“For us, it is important to look at the horticulture value chain beyond production. Farmers can produce as much as possible, but if they cannot properly store and preserve their harvest, they continue to lose value. Sustainable cooling and cold-chain solutions can help reduce post-harvest losses, extend the shelf life of produce and enable farmers to access better markets and improve their incomes,” says Catherine Kilelu, Director at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS).
A few kilometres from Kabaa, Alex Mumo offers a glimpse of what becomes possible when farmers can access the technology they need. Alex is a horticulture farmer cultivating a wide variety of crops on his 78-acre farm. He has already invested in a solar-powered pumping system, which has helped improve irrigation, support crop growth and contribute to the profitability of his farm.
But the existing system cannot fully meet the irrigation demands of his entire farm. Alex is therefore looking to invest in a larger system that would enable him to bring more of his land into production. “We have a lot of unutilised land. With a bigger solar pumping system, we will utilise the land fully. We are ready to walk this journey with DREEM and ACTS until we are assisted,” he says.
His experience illustrates the gap many farmers face: the willingness to invest and expand is there, but accessing the equipment and financing needed to do so remains a challenge.
“Our vision is to have as many farmers as possible in this scheme shift to solar because solar energy is freely available from the sun,” says James Mbatia, Programme Manager at the Kenya Climate Innovation Center (KCIC).
The push to adopt solar-powered solutions is at the heart of the Distributed Renewable Energy Ecosystem and Model HUB (DREEM) Programme, implemented by KCIC. The programme seeks to improve access to affordable productive-use solar energy financing for small-scale farmers in the horticulture and dairy sectors.
As the research and knowledge management spoke partner, ACTS is working alongside DREEM to understand farmers’ specific needs and identify solutions suited to their circumstances.
The assessment, conducted by the DREEM programme team together with ACTS, provided an opportunity to engage directly with Cohort 2 clients, assess their progress and explore the interventions that could help unlock their potential.
The findings will inform the next phase of support. Machakos may be an arid and semi-arid region, but Kabaa tells a different story, one of farmers who are turning dry land into productive farms.
The next step is to ensure that the gains made in production are not lost to high energy costs or poor post-harvest handling. The question is how much more the land can produce, and how much more farmers can earn, when the right solutions are within reach.