 Hello everyone. Good afternoon. I'm Abraham Abhishek from the Water Channel and from MetaMeta. Welcome to the webinar. This is part of a series of webinars co-organized by IHE Delft in collaboration with the Water Channel. One of the objectives of these webinars is to connect staff and the alumni of IHE located in different parts of the world. But in keeping with the commitment of IHE and of the Water Channel to open knowledge regarding water management and to sharing learning resources that we have at our disposal, we keep these webinars open to all, to whoever is interested in joining. So we are very happy to see some known familiar names but also very happy to see a number of people from outside of the fellowship of IHE. I would at this point like to acknowledge Maria Laura Sorrentino from IHE who is co-hosting the webinar. She is in the room. You can see her name under the host bar. She is the reason these webinars are happening. The reason we are able to bring you these webinars from IHE every few weeks. So thanks a lot, Maria. We are delighted to have here with us the speaker for the day, Benson Motuma Karimba. Benson is a graduate of IHE. He completed his master's in land and water development for food security and he did that with some distinction. He won the WSE thesis award which is an award constituted by Mr. Walter Bowden. So we have the pleasure of having with us here in this room right here right now. He is himself a former student of IHE. This award, the WSE thesis award is given to the best thesis from among the master's students in a given year and Benson got it for his dissertation which had actually exactly the same title as the webinar today. He is essentially presenting the work that he did for his thesis and the topic is dynamics of private smallholder irrigation using sand river aquifers in semi arid lands. I have not had the opportunity to study Benson's work in great detail but I did have the opportunity to briefly speak to him about it last week and I'm very curious. I'm really looking forward to his presentation today for two specific reasons. One is that from what I understood this is a kind of irrigation development that has gone on without much government support, without too much support from NGOs. This is really a phenomenon that has taken shape on the back of small farmers' own initiative. So a good understanding of this will have several learnings, several lessons for all of us involved in water education and research and practice especially those of us doing these things in the specific field of irrigation development. The second reason why I'm looking forward to the presentation today is that these farmers who are developing groundwater sources for irrigation on their own are doing so in semi arid areas and these are parts of the world that are at the front line of water scarcity induced by climate change. So I'm sure it'll be quite inspiring and quite instructional to learn about the story of these farmers from Kenya. So without further ado, I would like to hand things over to Benson now. He seems to have dropped out. I'm pretty sure he'll be with us again in just a few seconds. Benson, I think you can hear me. Could you please try and activate your camera? Yes. Before actually handing things over to Benson, I would like to encourage you to please keep this webinar very interactive. If you have questions and comments, please put them in the chat box here that you have already found, many of you here. And we will discuss each one of them in the Q&A session just after the presentation. With that, I would like to ask Benson to please jump in and take it away. Benson? Hello. Hope you can hear me. Thank you very much, Abraham, for the introduction. And it's a pleasure being here today and having the opportunity to present the work that I did for my research here in Kenya so that we can be able to share the knowledge and learn from it and hopefully also get to hear also your experiences on the same. So my name is Benson Mutuma and I'll be presenting this webinar on the dynamics of private smallholder irrigation using sand river aquifers in semi-arid land. This research was done in Kenya in a place called Kadiado which is in the south of Kenya. And I'll be talking about it a bit later on the study area and on what I was able to see and what I was able to find out from the area regarding the smallholder farmers there. I'll start with a brief introduction or background of the importance of agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa. And here in the region, agriculture contributes to about 30 percent of the GDP in various countries in the region. And it employs about 67 percent of the population of which majority live in the rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. However, when you look at irrigation development is... Hello everyone, sorry I think, sorry about that. Benson has just dropped out and yeah, he's right back with us. Sorry about that. I hope you can hear me. I was saying that about only six percent of the irrigation, only six percent of the cultivated area is under irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa. So we're still very behind in terms of irrigation development. However, recent research has shown that smallholder farmers mostly in the region are developing irrigation using private capital with very little government support or external support from donors or other external agencies. And this is mainly driven by the availability of water. Smallholder farmers are very keen to follow places or to go to places where conditions are conducive for irrigation development. These are places where the water is accessible. This is made possible also using low-cost technology that they're able to afford. And we can see this in semi-arid areas where research has also shown that sand rivers which are very common in many semi-arid areas in the region can actually straw water under the sand layers which are characteristic of these rivers, these seasonal rivers. And these are coming to be known as alluvial aquifers and they offer opportunity for irrigation development in many of these semi-arid areas which previously there was no farming which was taking place. But much of these private smallholder irrigation remains invisible in a way because it is largely informal. Most of the agreements and most of the working systems among these farmers are very informal and therefore you do not see much of this kind of irrigation development in literature or in any development agenda or policies. And therefore there is very little understanding of the risks and the challenges that the farmers face and how they're able to cope with these challenges. There are also concerns about the sustainability of the use of natural resources such as land and water because of these unprecedented or very rapid increase in smallholder irrigation in areas which is and which is not it's unchecked, there are no rules or regulations which govern how this development is taking place. So there are concerns that maybe in future there could be overuse of resources or the this kind of resources will not be sustainable looking at the future expansion needs or the needs of water with other other users. And looking at our study area it is in Kajiado County. This river is called the Olkeriai River. It's one of the major seasonal rivers in this area and Kajiado is basically a county which is on the border between Kenya and Tanzania and it is a semi-arid area which is dominated mainly by Rainslands. The majority of people living there are the masses who traditionally are livestock keepers so it is not a place where farming is very common. Much of the land is very semi-arid and they receive very low rainfall so there is very little farming. And this river is in central Kajiado. The Olkeriai River is in central Kajiado and it is a major sand river in the area and it has been used for many years by the local communities for domestic provision of domestic water for using domestic purposes and also for watering their livestock. But over the last decade or so these aluvial aquifers which are found under the sand layers in the river have been found to have the potential to even support irrigation development and this has led to a cropping up of irrigation expansion near a strip of land near the riverbanks because that's where farmers are able to access water easily and they can use potable pumps to pump water from shallow wells or scoop holes from the river and they're able to irrigate the lands which are just adjacent to the river. And as you can see on the in this map here the green dots represents the where the farm plots are or the farm plots which were visited. They are only concentrated on these narrow strip along the river and therefore the research question. Sorry again I think something is up with Benson's connection. He should be with us shortly as he was a few minutes ago. Thank you. Benson your microphone we can't quite hear you. In this research. Can you hear me right now? Yeah. Okay thank you. I'm sorry for that. I'm using a land connection and maybe it has a problem but I'll try and sort it out. The research questions were first to find out the what are the characteristics of the farming systems along the old Keriai river being that this is an area which has developed irrigation has developed over the last few years so it is a place where farming systems are not they're kind of changing their very dynamic and first of all we wanted to I wanted to characterize and see the characteristics of the farming systems along the river. Secondly was to find the main challenges and facing the small holder farmers along this river and how they cope with these challenges and to that lead to look at now the trajectories of development of individual farmers because these farmers are different in terms of their capacity to farm and in terms of their resources too. So to look at how different farmers development trajectories are affected by the challenges and the risks that they face and how they're able to cope with them. The methodology of the research design was first of all to look at the test study where I studied Google images for the area to identify the study area boundaries and then we did a baseline survey to collect farm plot data using structured questionnaires and 23 farms in the baseline survey 214 farm plots were visited of which 107 were interviewed and the rest were not operational at the moment and then 23 farmers 23 farm plots were selected for in-depth interviews using semi-structured interviews to collect in-depth data on now the challenges and the coping strategies of different farmers and after that data analysis was conducted to look at the typology of farming systems and drawing the trajectories basing them on the farming histories of different farmers. There were three main farming systems that were in this area that they are myriad of farming system but three main farming systems were identified. The first one were the low resource individual farms these were farms which were managed by single farmers who are providing both capital and labor on the farm I call them individual farms because it was a single farmer who was actually managing the farm and also providing the capital the capital and also the labor to to farm on the farm plot these these farm plots were generally small because they were 0.7 hectares in size and they they were growing crops mainly for the local market and subsistence and they had very little off farm incomes or government support or even access to credit facilities. The second farming system was also individually managed by a single farmer or a single farmer but now the difference was that these had high resource medium to high resource farmers meaning that the farmer provided the capital to farm but the labor was employed so the farmer employed either farm workers on a temporary or permanent basis to work on the farm plots these these farm plots were mostly the largest in size because they averaged around 2.4 hectares and they grew crops both for the local market and also some for the export markets. The third farming system which was the majority or most of the farming most of the farms who are using this farming system was a partnership farming system which brought together a group of farmers either two or three farmers who partnered with a capital provider locally these capital providers were known as Tajiris. A Tajiri is a Israeli name for a rich person so in this context the Tajiri was used to to describe the person who provided capital to farm or he provided all the money required to buy the inputs and and support the farming vendor where the group of farmers provided the labor so it was it was a partnership between a Tajiri on one side and a group of farmers on the other side and the good thing with this farming system is that at the end of the season when the when they harvested the crop and they sold the crop these the the Tajiri would recoup the the the capital that he or she had invested and then the profit that was left there was split on a 50-50 basis between the farmers and and and Tajiri meaning that it was more or less kind of a business partnership where the farmers and the Tajiri had equally shares in the farming vendor and it was the the most common type because out of 107 plots that were interviewed 80 of them were 75 about 75 percent were using this partnership system whereas the remaining 25 percent was split between the two types of individual farming systems this is a dramatic representation of how this farming system worked looking at system one which is the low resource farming system we see that the the farmer provides the labor and also the capital and the farm the produce is sold to the local market there are a few of them who are selling the produce to the city markets and all city markets were accessed through brokers anyone who had to to sell produce to the city market had to go through the brokers and the second farming system also the second farming system comprised of the owner who employed labor and this employed labor was was used on the farm plots and they supplied also to the local markets and also to the city markets through the brokers and also the third farming system which had the Tajiri and one Tajiri could manage one farm plot or even two farm plots depending on on the amount of capital that they had um so what are the what were the challenges and and the risks that this farmer faced the first main challenge was crops the pests and diseases which which were facing the the farmers this this was a new area where farming was not being done before and the introduction of mainly tomato the two main crops which are being grown were tomatoes and watermelons um they were prone to crops pests and diseases and this had the effect of increasing farming costs because um with these pests and diseases had to be controlled using agrochemicals and because of the the because of these now the there was an increase in the in the farming costs the second challenge was the exploitation of the farmers by the brokers as I said before any farmer who wanted to sell to the city market had to go through a system of brokers who were in the area and no buyer could come to the area to buy any farm produce without going through the broker so the brokers were kind of the middle person between the buyers in the city and the and the and the farmers at the farm level and these at times these brokers exploited the farmers because the farmers had very little knowledge on on on the market prices so they pushed down the market prices so that they could buy at very low prices from the from the farmers there was also a very lack of a very high lack of support networks especially for the low resource farmers low resource farmers um the ones with the very little resources had very little access to credit and also they had very little orphan incomes um and this severely severely affected the um the ability to to develop irrigation because in case of any external shock let's say um their crops were infested by a crop some personal diseases or there was a flooding incident without any credit facility all their capital would be lost but um on the other two types the high resource farmers and the tajiri system who mainly relied on on the tajiri to bring in the the the income they were a bit cushioned from these farming farming risks and challenges there was also a lot of disputes among the farming stakeholders this was mainly observed in the third system of the third system of of irrigation which was a partnership system between tajiris and and farmers these systems were mainly on a informal basis and through through the season there could be very many disagreements or disputes which were brought about firstly by if any of the tajir was unreliable if a tajir was not able to bring all the farming the farming inputs required in time the farmers usually abandoned the farm and went to seek tajiris with better resources there was also a bit of dishonesty because as I said the tajir if when they sold the products or then they sold the farm produce the tajir was first of all supposed to recoup their capital that they had invested in the farm so some tajiris were found to to increase the cost of the input so as to be able to recoup more money than than was actually there meaning that the profit that they shared with the farmers was actually lower than than expected and this brought a lot of disputes among them and the farmers there was also water shortage which was not a very big problem at the moment because the capacity was not yet exited for for farming but there were incidences where farmers were complaining of water shortages especially in in in areas where there was sand harvesting there were there were areas in the in the along the river where sand harvesting was very very intense and close to these areas there were problems with water shortage and these points to a future problem or a red flag in future because if it's not regulated there could be there could be more severe water shortages in in future. The coping strategies of of these farmers remember each farmer had their own coping strategy depending on the risks and challenges that they faced and one of the coping strategy was either downgrading or upgrading a production capacity at critical times as you can see in this trajectory this is an example of one farmer who was a was a low resource farmer and all through within the years there were seasons where um she made good profit out of out of the farming ventures and other seasons where because she did not have a lot of resources and she suffered losses in previous season she got to a point where she could not farm any more and this downgrading of the production capacity could reach a point where a farmer would stop farming completely maybe for a season or two as they seek other means of of getting income and then after a season or two they go back to farming so this kind of trajectory reached a point where the farmer can stop farming and then come back later after a few years and it was one of the strategies that they used to to cope with with the with the challenges and the risks of farming the second strategy was the diversification of crops and incomes this was mainly found with farmers who had more resources to to to use in the farming system and you find that their trajectory was mostly on an upward basis because they could they were not very much affected with them with with shocks even though there were seasons where they suffered losses but because they had um a lot of other income that they could still invest in farming you find that they diversified their crops some of them got into export markets of um friends beans which which was a new thing most of the farmers who are farming tomatoes and watermelons which were bringing a lot of problems especially with the pests and the diseases but these farmers found a way of diversifying to crops and going into contract farming for friends beans and you see that they continued their trajectory on an on an upward basis and another strategy was the flexibility and mobility of farmers where you find that mostly in the third system of farming where you had the the tajiri and and the farmers they these kind of arrangements were flexible enough so that because they were only seasonal based these these arrangements were were not they were very informal and they were based on they were supposed to end at the end of the season one once the farmer once the farmer they harvest the crop they may opt to continue with the with the arrangement the partnership arrangement or they move on to find a better tajiri or to find better farmers and in this um for an example of these uh farmer who had moved from so many places changing tajiris from one area to another because of one problem or the other because um shows that they had the flexibility they are not tied down to one tajiri where they could work with them maybe for a number of years they could work with them in for one season and if the the partnership had any any issues or they did not make profit with that with that tajiri they could shift and go and seek a better farming uh partnership um now these um leads us to a short discussion on how private smallholder irrigation is developing and from these research and from the results that were able to be observed from the case study it shows that there is a great level of um self-organization among private smallholders something that is not is is not much documented and this has brought in new farming systems as a result of um institution of bright college bright college is the piecing together of different working arrangements and borrowing together of um of working arrangements from other farming systems from from other places majority of farmers who are working in this area were migrant farmers who are coming in from either other regions where they were farming before some were even coming in from from Tanzania and they brought their knowledge to this area so as to to be able to form new farming system arrangements we can see this in the example of the tajiri system which was brought together the tajiris who are mostly business people or people who wanted to invest in farming but they did not have the knowledge but they formed a farming systems with the with the farmers who had the knowledge on how to farm but they did not have the resources and this brought in the partnership system of farming and it also brought in the coping strategy because um many farmers did not have access to resources or orphan incomes but this new kind of farming system was able to to solve that problem for them the second thing is that the private smallholder farmers is not confined to any geographical location there was a lot of flexibility and movement with farmers moving from one area to another and this was mainly facilitated because of the informal agreements that were there between the land owners and and the tajiris and the farmers um access to land was also mainly on lease basis um migrant farmers were coming into the area leasing land in the area and for only short periods maybe a year or two years and therefore moving if conditions are not very favorable they could move into to to other areas and this shows that really irrigation is not fixed to one area but it can it is very mobile and it can move from one place to another in in its development and um finally is that um there needs to be um some adaptive resource management plans because um as you can see it is not yet a big problem in this area but we can see future conflicts in this resource because um around around kajado area kajado is flanked with the with the city of Nairobi and other urban growing areas and there is there's a lot of demand not only for for food that is that's coming out of the irrigation but also for building sand that is also harvested from the same sand river but the the harvesting of sand also brings about challenges because it it may reduce the holding capacity of the water in the river and this might bring problems of water shortages and also conflict among these different um kind of users and therefore really there's need to to look also into the sustainability of how this resource is being used and remember that the the resource as it is right now it is being used without um without much control because the the land rights and the water rights to abstract water from the river is being given by the land owners who who own the land in this area so it is really um there's really need to be able to sit down with all the stakeholders and see how the resource may be may be used uh in future and may be used in a more sustainable way thanks a lot Benson thanks for the great presentation we have a lot of questions that is the end of my presentation so let's get right to it the first question is from Dr Ramilis Akwani who asks what are the legal structures that affect the riverbank cultivation in consideration of the present legal regulations for riparian zones in Kenya um thank you very much Dr Akwani um currently um the legal regulations is that there should be no cultivation um near the river banks to up to um there should be no cultivation near the river banks to uh distance of 30 meters from the river on both sides of the bank um this is according to what is there on low and and what is there um in in the in the in the legal frameworks but what we see in this area is that there is very little regulation about this uh like has happened before I think Benson will be right back in just a few seconds sorry about that thanks for your patience yes yes I was uh replying to Dr Akwani um saying that what we observe in this area even though the regulation says that there should not be any cultivation um up to from 30 meters to the 30 meters from the from the river banks there's still a lot of cultivation because this cultivation is dependent on the on the alluvial aquifers and the these alluvial aquifers cannot be accessed near the river bank so that is um what is conflicting in this in this scenario thank you the next question is from Walter who asks does the system benefit the Tajiri's uh more than the farmers can a farmer become a Tajiri herself or himself thanks to the irrigation has that happened um thank you very much Walter I would say the system is is mutually beneficial as it is right now because the Tajiri is um is when you look on the side of the Tajiri they it's a risky investment to invest capital in in adventure without knowing the resource remember the farmers are using their knowledge and they invest in their time uh their time and labor on the farm the Tajiri is investing the capital but once the once the the product is sold the Tajiri is first of all supposed to recoup their capital invested but there are instances where maybe the market price is very low or there has been a distraction of crop of the crop because of one reason or another maybe personal diseases or maybe there is a there are floods in the area the Tajiri may still not be able to recoup all their capital so in that instance they they may suffer a loss even without the profit the farmers are not tied to the to the to the profit of the of the they are not tied to the capital there even though the Tajiri suffers any loss in capital the the season ends at that and they are not they cannot carry that over to another season they might opt to go to a different Tajiri and start all over again so I would not say that it benefits the Tajiri though they they are the the first ones to to recoup their to recoup their capital but in terms of the profits the profits are shared 50 50 so they are the profits are shared 50 50 and this is where where it matters and it means that both parties kind of benefit equally from from what they've invested the the Tajiri has invested capital and gets 50 percent of the 50 percent of the profits and the farmers have invested their time and and labor and also they get 50 percent of the profit there are instances where a farmer can become a Tajiri yes that is that is very possible though this this is quite it was quite rare in this in this area because of of two reasons first is that many farmers saw the the accumulation of capital as and then investing it in farming as as a very risky option so they still insisted on being farmers themselves because they their knowledge was mostly on the farming though there are aspirations there there are some who had aspirations to become the Tajiri but the way the system was set up it required a lot of a lot of savings and a lot of a a lot of accumulation of the capital that they've made all through the years and because one season they might have profits the other season they might have losses it kind of diluted the their upward trajectory towards becoming Tajiri not unless they they had some either off-farm incomes or they invested in other other sources except except farming thank you the next question is from Dr. Rokwani again who I think is referring to the third farming system that you refer to in one of your slides and is that third arrangement a result of poverty constraints of the farmers or is it an economic basis is it a choice on based on pure economics it it's actually I would say it's actually both because first of all farmers are constrained in terms of the resources they may they may not have the capital required to go into this intensive irrigation of of tomatoes and and watermelons which requires a capital to have to buy the pumps and to buy the irrigation pipes and to buy the fertilizers and the seeds so many of these farmers are coming from areas where they have been farming but they do not have the resources to go into that kind of intensive farming you can see that especially in the first farming system where we have farmers with very small very small plots of land and these farmers are not able to have capital to to go into the intensive farming so they only concentrate on farming for the local for the local market and subsistence farming and also you can see their land sizes are very small so in that instance when you look at it from the farmers from the farmers perspective it is a poverty constraint the lack of resources is not is pushing them towards looking for tragedies where they they can find someone who can support them to farm and then them they can use their own experience and knowledge in farming when you look at the the side of tragedies a tragedy someone who has basically the capital and they want to invest it in in in a certain way so that it can it can have some profits and the tragedy you might find there are business people maybe who live in the cities they're not necessarily people who live in this in this area and investment options people can choose to invest in different ways but from one way for one reason or another the tragedies look at farming as one of the investment options so but because they do not have knowledge on how to farm and they live far away and they cannot be able to come and manage the farm plots themselves they decide to get into this partnership system and they trust the farmers with their capital with the hope that at the end of the season they will have a profit for it so say it is it is both ways it is also a poverty constraint it is pushed by poverty constraint from the farmers and when you look at it at it from the tragedies it is it is an economic form of investment right the next question is about system two question from from Annalik is why does system two still have substantial off-farm income compared to system one she would expect it to be the other way system system two has a substantial off-farm incomes because majority of of these individual farmers have the landowners themselves many of them are local Masai people who have picked these farming experience from or farming knowledge from these migrant farmers who are coming in and they have their own land big tracks of land that they also want to get into the farming into the farming business so they and also they have substantial off-farm incomes because they have things like livestock you know I talked before saying that the local Masai is most of them are livestock keepers and they have they keep a lot of livestock this livestock also acts as off-farm incomes because when they are when through the season they can be they can be sold and this this cash got from the off-farm incomes is invested into the into the farming however system one is is majorly small small small farmers or I wouldn't call them small farmers they are low resource farmers who have not yet found or who are who have not yet been able to link up found they have not been able to find a tajiri to support them in their farming and therefore the the only small resources or the only money they have they can investment invest it in their in their own small in the in least farm plots first of all but they are not able also to employ people to work on those farms so you find them working on the farm plots themselves so if you have one farmer who is working on on a farm plot there is a very small it is a limit up to what amount of site of the size of land they can be able to farm so this this system one farmers are maybe in something we may call a poverty loop they are not able to break into the next system of farming because they are constrained first of all with the resources and the labor they're not they're not able to to break into another level of farming and in case of any external shocks that may be they may come into their farm inventor they will go back or they will lose all their resources but when you look at system two because they have incomes or farm incomes which they might invest in the farm they are able to diversify and they are able to expand their their farm inventors okay the next question is one that you you have kind of addressed in some of your later slides it's from Ricardo who asks is a water abstraction licensing system in place and how is groundwater management of these aquifers these kind of aquifers imposed in the course of the research I was able to interview one respondent or one respondent from the water management authority that that is supposed to oversee the abstraction of water from all natural resources in the region but there was a challenge that was raised which was the the the licensing of abstraction of water really depends on the organization at at this lower level like the water users water resources users associations but in this area when you look at it it is an area where most of the farmers are coming in from outside they're not local residents in this area and therefore there is really not a very well developed water users water users resources associations and therefore the implementation or the licensing the implementation of these licensing laws for water abstraction is very is very poor and this is a major challenge to the to the water resources authority and the management of the management of the groundwater aquifer these currently there is no there's no proposal on how this groundwater is is is is being managed at the moment because the as I said the land the the abstraction the the water right or the rights to abstract water is given by the land owner in this area there is a local agreement that the land owner is also the owner of the of the water in the aquifer so when you find all across the river there is there are so many land owners and therefore different land owners have their own different rules on how the water is supposed to be abstracted so really if there is a proposal that is this if there's a proposal for the management of the groundwater it would have to bring in all the land owners first and also the farmers okay thanks a lot the next question is from walter who's who would like your views on if there's a possibility to set up farmers cooperative with the advantage of having easier access to microfinance or voice against agides ability to have more leverage on the price of agricultural inputs and outputs the possibility for to set up farmers cooperative is there but these farmers cooperative according to the study that I did or a cooperative being set up on a top down approach would would really not I would say to not be successful in this area basically because these kind of farming arrangements with tajiris is is very I would say it's very it's a response as to what the farmers need and bringing together setting up a cooperative would would mean that people formalizing on these agreements that are there and currently from what was observed is that there are so many a myriad of farmers who are coming from various areas and some farmers are coming also from across the borders remember these people maybe are not in this area as you can say legally so they might not be very open into the idea of setting up a farmer's cooperative but on the issue of microfinance they could be aware to or their proposal could could work in terms of a setting up microfinances that could be could support the farmers not not really to to be against the tajiris because the tajiris offer more than offer more than than capital for for farmers in terms of the offer some sort of soft clones or credit facilities to the farmers which are returned without any any interest they just deducted out of the what what the farmers were supposed to get but the microfinance or these formal institutions would bring in issues of interest and most of the farmers are not uh most of the farmers that we talk I talked to they were very uh sir they are not very very open to the idea of going to bands because they were saying that farming farming is very risky and therefore they prefer these kind of informal ways of of farming because they mitigated and again if in case there were losses they are not tied down to any 20 20 debts on their part yeah that's understandable I suppose uh the next question is from Hosefa who asks if the safe yield of the sand aquifer is known and how do the farmers know if there will be adequate water available for irrigation currently there there's very little study or the studies are not established or the studies that are to establish the the safe field from the from the sand river aquifers it requires extensive studies over a long time and this is a remote area which has previously not not had any gazing session or any other studies done for on the aquifer so there is there's really no safe field known officially known at the moment and the farmers really will just know the the the amount of water abstracted the amount of water that is required for irrigation depending on the levels of of water in in either their well or their scoop holes but they kind of mitigate against this if there is there there are low levels of water maybe in the well one of the ways where which they find to mitigate against this is that they are water sharing arrangements it's not strict that a farmer uses their own well or their own scoop hole if there is a point where the water is is very low in the well they have options to maybe go to a to the next farmer or to the next well and come up with a sharing a water sharing arrangements and they can be able to move their pump from their own well to the other well and these informal arrangements are what makes the irrigation thrive in the area thanks the next question is from Jonah who asks what is the place of governments local state or district or at the national level in the allocation of resources and also in the overall monetary there are two levels of of government in Kenya the the local government or the county government and the national government the water resources on a regional basis is part of the water resources authority that is a is a parasitial of the national government whereas the agricultural development and irrigation development is a is a devolved function which is part of the local government that means it's part of the country um for the supporting of of the farmers um the local government is supposed to initiate subsidies maybe for the provision of fertilizers or other farming inputs but there has been a challenge even in the agricultural extension of of kaziado county because um of very little resources it has not it's a devolved function but it has not got up and running so um according to the to the interviews that I conducted it's there is very little penetration of both levels of government into this kind of of irrigation and that's why I said it is almost like it's invisible it's not very very well very well known in policy and the development agenda and though there is there is um the the national government and and the and the water resources authority is supposed to at the overall monitor how water is being used in the area the they do this in collaboration with uh water resources users association and as I said before the informal nature and the very mobile nature of this kind of irrigation makes it very hard for water these users associations to develop because farmers are maybe in that area for a very short period of time and then they move out and go to another area so there is still very um there's still very little penetration of both levels of government into into the resource allocation and and monitoring thank you we have in the room uh Robert Vauke from Practica Foundation who work in Mozambique and Zimbabwe on sand rivers and the question is if there is a apart from the problem of water shortage is one of the problems also uh lack of availability or lack of knowledge regarding low-cost technologies to access water between 0 to 10 meters apart from the traditional methods like shallow points and holes I didn't find I didn't find the the problem mainly on the availability of knowledge um what what I found is that farmers basically land from each other and across the area I would say um 100 percent of all the farmers were either accessing water using shallow wells or accessing water using scoop holes the shallow wells were there because um they were more durable shallow wells when they are dug they can um they can uh they can stay for for a bit maybe three four years without without maintenance but scoop holes the scoop holes that are being dug in the riverbeds they are very prone to flooding they are washed away by the by the floods but still um they are they are preferred because they are low cost they do not they do not cost much to to dig these scoop holes and the farmers can just move from one farm to another and and dig another scoop hole and um and still access water from the from the sand river um and this kind of um this kind of of knowledge is is is passed on from from farmer to farmer and and that is what they prefer prefer the most though um in terms of irrigation access uh there was also very little uh there was very little penetration of water saving technology like drip irrigation because most farmers uh depended on pumping water directly to to farrows or to small basins where the crop was grown and i would attribute this to also the the nature of the way they want to move from one season to another if if the farmers would invest in maybe a very permanent a permanent or semi permanent irrigation system it would be hard for them to to to move from one area to another so i would say it's not really the lack of knowledge of this technology which are there but it is uh it is a way which allows them to to be very mobile and to be very flexible in changing uh geographical areas and in changing from one farm to another yeah interesting um the next question is from jay miguel who asked if there is currently a water related conflict between the small holder farmers and the uh and the pastoralist and do you think this can be a problem in the future i would say the the the conflict is very localized um it is not something that it it's not something that you can it's not something that uh is very extensive because um the only small problems is maybe uh livestock that is grazing on on on on farmland and but there is not really uh that much of conflict these small conflicts are mainly handled between the farmers and the land owners but in future um as more farmers may be coming to this area if there will not be a very solid or a or a a solid management plan on how to manage the water resources and also the land which brings together the pastoralist the land owners and also the farmers there could be a future problem in in this and um the the notion is that the the sand river um basically it's it's a local resource which benefits the the local the local um the local massai community but the farmers who are mostly coming from outside they are the ones who are benefiting from the from from the irrigation so there's that sort of conflict that the sand river the farming is mostly beneficial to people from outside while the the sand harvesting and the water in the sand river is beneficial to the to the local people so that's why i say that to avoid such future conflict there's a there's a need to bring together all these parties to to be able to form a sound management plan for the for the resource uh we have Dr Rokwani again who us in the matter of high mobility how is that uh so how is high mobility affecting the land and water conservation practices given the higher interest for immediate benefits rather than thank you Dr Rokwani this is this is actually um one of another matter of of sustainability because um we find that because of these mobility and farmers uh moving from from one farm to another there are large states of land which are left without uh without any any farmland remember i out of the 214 farm plots that i visited around 60 percent were operational at the moment that was uh in december 2019 and 40 percent of of farm plots were not were not uh were not uh currently operational these were these farm plots which are not operational were farm plots that had been farmed maybe a year before or a season before and then left as farmers shifted to another area to look for more fertile land this is affecting um mostly the riparian vegetation because farmers want or the farmers want to move to areas which has not been farmed before because they they view those areas as being more fertile and when they are moving to this area they are destroying the natural vegetation and the riparian vegetation near the near the river while they are living behind uh other parts of land which have not have not have not been planted with any trees or they're not replanting the vegetation that was there before the other um the other concern is that because of these intensive irrigation or irrigation farming practices there is a there's a very big tendency to to use a lot of chemicals agrochemicals and uh such inputs because farmers want to get the the maximum amount of productivity from this season and these um mostly you find it uh though it was not part of the research but you the the effect of this is like this these agrochemicals might wash down to the to the alluvial aquifers and pollute pollute the water which in future might also become a big problem so all these challenges are uh they're not currently being experienced but in future they they might they might come back to to to being a very big problems in the area okay uh we have more questions again from uh Robert who has a series of questions the first question how long the land lease constructions are basically they're they're not tied down to any any any time frame they are they are basically they they basically depend on the agreement between the the farmers and the land owners um there are some land owners who may want to lease land only for one season there's the other land owners who mostly in places where it has not been formed before um a farmer might come and maybe dig a well and uh they they invest a lot of money in digging this well uh in this kind of instance the land owner might might might give a longer lease to the farmer so that they can recoup the money that they used to to dig the well and this might go maybe for one or two years but in other instances you might find that farmers are there for only one season or two seasons so really it it is it depends on um on the agreement and also on the capital that um that the farmers have uh that the tajiri sorry that the tajiris have to invest in the farming um what do you see as major opportunities or strategies to scale this up um the the major opportunity that um that is there um is basically to because the the the the the major opportunity that is there is to basically um look into irrigation practices that will maximize the amount of of water that that is being used um there is also the sand river itself um the way it is the the nature of the sand river is that it refills or it refills after every rainy season the sand any any any flood that comes to the area it will refill the it will refill the sand um the sand river aquifers and this really brings out the the opportunity in terms of nature-based water storage for for irrigation development and this can be scaled up also to other areas in terms of where even the the the there are sand rivers but there is not enough quantity of sand to hold enough enough water for irrigation there are areas where um you can use natural barriers called sand dams which which are constructed across the river channel and these uh these hold back the sand from washing down and increases the capacity of storage of the sand river also um in terms of sand harvesting as I said sand harvesting is um is something that is is being practiced in some parts of the of the of the river and it's something that cannot be wished away because it is benefiting directly the local use uh in the area so there is um an opportunity to maybe prevent the conflict resolution is like you can find areas where uh sand can be helped sand maybe sand dams can be um can be constructed to be able to hold sand for for harvesting purposes so as not to destroy the whole stretch of the river but to have specific points where you can have sand harvesting and uh harvesting sand so that it can be it can be used for construction while other areas are left for irrigation uh thanks uh thanks uh thank you Benson I have a question we have already reached the end of the like we have reached the end of the allocated time for for the webinar but if you're up for it we still have three or four more questions would you would it be okay with you if you if we take a few more questions thanks a lot thanks for your patience and time again from Robert more of a comment this time around is uh he's sharing his experience we have seen major opportunities for well construction on the actual banks of the river instead of the river itself the aquifers are often connected and this reduced pumping head but also reduced dangers of flooding and losing equipment uh have you seen such abstraction on the bank no no I have um I have not maybe you're you're talking about uh well construction in terms of drilled wells I hope that's uh that's what you refer to as well construction um I have not seen um well like drilling of of shallow wells near the on the banks what what what is mostly common there that is uh wells like big wells maybe of um around 15 meters in diameter or 10 meters in diameter um which are there and as you say they are they are less prone to they're less prone to flooding but they also cost more to they also cost more to dig therefore um because of this cost farmers and farmers you find them avoiding them and wanting to go to the to the easier route of digging scoop holes at the at the riverbeds and also um well construction is it's it's something that can have an opportunity for the for the land owners I would say because um they will they will ensure that they will have accessible water to to the farmers who come to least land on their on their parcels of land because the the land parcels of land which has which has maybe has a well or has already dug well will cost more to to lease and therefore it will have a more income for the land owner thank you you spoke about the intensive use of you know pesticides and start and such and fertilizers and there's a question regarding that are there any potential risks of water pollution from the use of pesticides as mentioned and fertilizers perhaps if that is also something that happens uh and yeah thanks for the presentation yes the the risk is is there though it was not um it has not been studied in in in my in my work that I did there but it's it's something that is actually there because um as I said the the the the irrigation of the farming is done very close to the river not more than 500 meters away from the river and in any case when when there is a when there is a a lot of pesticides used and a lot of fertilizers used and this is being used for a season before people before the farmers you move to another to another area you might find that with any rainy season these these these pesticides are washed down into the into the sand river and into the aquifers and with more and more farmers coming into the area or if there is more there is increased intensity in the use of these pesticides um I studied on the on the quality of water in the aquifers might really be different right now from maybe let's say five years down the line so there's really a big risk of of water pollution if this is not controlled thank you there's a clarification from Robert who points out that what he's referring to is not really giant wells which are also used for livestock he's referring to low cost drilling the kind of wells that uh are dark using low cost drilling no Robert there are there are no low cost there are no low cost drill drilling well drill dwells in the area just just a big just the big the big well it's it's an opportunity actually because um it it presents it's an opportunity for the for the for the farmers themselves what I'm not quite sure is is the yield amount of the of the wells and if they might support what what I kind of think is that farmers prefer these uh big wells because they have this illusion that it has a lot of water and therefore it it might it might be able to support bigger uh bigger parcels of land um low cost drilling is very is very possible though I would think that they need to needs to be done let's say um pump testing to know the actual yields of of the of the wells so as to be so so that the farmers can know if it might support um what size of land thank you we will close with two questions quite related to each other um Goni Mufute and hope I pronounce your name correctly uh asks if this type of irrigation is recognized by the government and if there's any form of of of assistance that is offered to the irrigators uh Lakshman asks what could be one of what could be one of the ways of working with the government for mainstreaming this learning with the with the Goni the I would say the the irrigation is recognized it's it's not really because they are government agencies and and the agricultural officers of the government who are in the area and they recognize this kind of this kind of irrigation but the problem is that there is very little assistance offered to the irrigators one of the reasons I found was that because of the laws that are there currently like if I may take an example of farmers wanting subsidies fertilizer subsidies from the government they have to present formal documents showing land ownership that they own land in a certain place and therefore they can be registered into this uh uh government system of maybe getting subsidized fertilizer subsidies so you find with this area um that such kind of regulation or such kind of rules they look down they look out many farmers who are dependent on these informal lease type of lease type of agreements to to access land because if they're supposed to show formal documents that they own land but they are not really the land owners but they've at least land in informal ways they are locked down they are locked out of being able to access them so these in terms of policies there's there's the recognition is there the government knows the irrigation is there but when you go to now policy documents the regulations or the rules which are there are what locks out many many of the farmers um one of the ways that the government could could um one of the ways of working with the government um in mainstreaming this is I would say um carrying out more of stakeholder um stakeholder um workshops with the farmers bringing farmers together even if they are there for only short periods of time and um kind of getting to know their experiences and getting to learn from from the farmers what how they should be or how the which working systems work work best for them instead of the rules coming from the government side to the farmers the government should more of bring farmers on board so that they can be able to discuss what really works for them and what doesn't work for them because it's it's something that is very uh it's something that changes from one uh one period to another something that also the players who are who are participating in this kind of farming they are also changing so it is something that needs to be done constantly over over a long period of time thank you Benson thanks a lot with that we have truly reached the end of the webinar I have to assure you Benson thanks so much for your for your patience despite the fact that the discussions went slightly over time uh for me there were a lot of takeaways and one of them was like a set of issues like like the discussion that happened right towards the end which is that you know while it's great that small farmers are doing this at their own initiative of course with the help of kind of outside entities like the GDs it's really important that what we can call the formal sector so financial institutions government organizations extension organizations that they will link up with these farmers a bit more and provide them some support that they need but might often find lacking and the other thought is about how this phenomenon projects into the future the question of sustainability the red flag that Benson placed on too much sand harvesting and the and the possible shortages and disputes in the future it lends itself to the need to start thinking about how all this can be regulated a bit and regulated not in a stifling constraining way but in an enabling way that keeps it sustainable thanks Benson for your great presentation and thanks to you all the audience for turning up in good numbers and for your great questions lots of questions and lots of comments thanks a lot I have an announcement to make about series of upcoming webinars sometime after October 15th we will confirm it to you soon we have a series of two webinars on a very interesting topic the application of artificial intelligence in water resource management the webinars will be conducted by Dr. Herardo Corzo Perez I hope I have got the pronunciation of his name right who's an associate professor in hydroinformatics at IIT and three IIT alumni who have been working in this field in the field of artificial intelligence in Africa Latin America and Asia respectively so look forward to that do join us there at those webinars I hope you find the topic enticing enough and you will join us recording of this webinar and updates regarding the upcoming webinars will be available on the water channel website let me just copy paste a link over here so this is the water channel link and on the IIT website and use letters that we are well familiar with but let me place the link over here just in case again so yeah here you can find information about the upcoming webinars and follow up related to this webinar so now I would just like to say thanks again especially to Benson as the speaker and goodbye