Farmers bear brunt of Mau forest destruction
By Christopher Owuor, February 28, 2020When John Koini started wheat farming in Narok, the largest producer in the country in the early 1980s, he used to harvest more than 35, 90-kg bags per hectare.
With the earnings, he was able to feed his family and pay school fees for his children.
Koini could walk to a farm machinery outlet or financial institutions and get farm implements and loans with ease.
“I did not fear taking up loans or acquiring new machinery because my earnings were enough to service them and settle other debts without being penalised,” says the farmer from Oloshapani area.
The same could be said of most farmers in his area including Nkorinkori, Ololulung’a Nkareta, Ntulele and Upper Melili who used to harvest more than 30 bags per hectare much to the surprise of even agricultural experts.
“Through the government’s Guaranteed Minimum Returns (GMR) scheme farmers were compensated in the event of crop failure,” he says.
Weather was favourable for wheat and even production of other crops that were grown for subsistence and commercial purposes.
But from 1999, following unpredictable weather patterns, things took a turn for the worse with farmers harvesting less than 30 bags per hectare.
Production has continued to dip, with farmers currently taking home less than 10 bags per hectare.
Most of them have been listed with Credit Reference Bureau (CRB) for loan defaults because of successive crop failure.
Two decades of Mau forest destruction are to blame for the erratic weather which has eroded the gains Narok farmers enjoyed due to bumper harvests in the 80s.
“From 1999, rains have been erratic resulting in crop failures. Farmers have fallen into the cycle of poverty, unable to service loans borrowed to finance farming,” says Koini who is also a retired banker.
Mau forest, the closed canopy forest and the biggest water tower in the country, used to regulate temperatures in the area, but after massive destruction, the heat has become unbearable.
“The weather patterns are erratic. Temperatures at times drop drastically and when it rains, landslides and massive soil erosion are always recorded,” says Koini.
“After many years of soil erosion, most farms on the hilly zones have become barren after losing fertile top soils,” he says.
Duncan Totona, another large scale wheat farmer, paints a grim picture of future crop production, saying there will come a time when most farmers will abandon wheat farming.
Totona, who hails from Nkareta, says the cost of production has gone up, adding that over the last few years, land under the crop continues to decrease.
The weather change has also affected maize and tea farmers in the neighbouring Bomet and Kericho counties.
Up to about six years ago, maize farmers in most parts of Bomet used to realise two good harvests in a year.
They now rely on one unsatisfactory harvest a year due to unreliable rain.
Since 2011 when the lethal Maize Leaf Necrosis Disease (MLND) was first reported in the area and lately the Fall Army Worm menace, harvests have been severely compromised.
“Weather, the viral disease and now the resurgence of the worms, have conspired to deny us good returns. Land under the crop is fast shrinking,” says Johana Ngerechi, a farmer in Chemaner area about 25 kilometres east of Maasai Mau forest.
Shem Shikuku, Narok South sub-country agriculture officer says despite good crop husbandry, harvests have been compromised by poor rainfall, pests and diseases, adding that farmers are now harvesting less than the recommended 30 bags and above.
“Inadequate rain, pests such as the Fall Army Worm and diseases such as Stem Rust have over the years denied them good harvests. Farmers are now struggling to break even,” he says.
In 2017, Shikuku says farmers earned Sh3.2 billion from sale of wheat but the earnings plummeted to Sh1.8 billion the following year because of poor rainfall, pests and diseases.
Patrick Lekenit, Narok County National Environment Management Authority (Nema) coordinator says because of soil erosion, phosphate and other heavy metals have found their way to rivers and other sources of clean water, putting lives of thousands of people who depend on them and their livestock in real jeopardy.
Phosphate poisoning
“Studies from water samples we have been taking for analysis since 1998, when encroachment was sanctioned, have shown high concentration of phosphate in rivers because of erosion of agriculturally rich black soils from farms on the upper zones,” he says.
According to Rhino Ark chief executive Christian Lambretchs, who has over the last three decades documented the unchecked destruction of Maasai Mau, the country’s economy loses about Sh6 billion annually in goods and services from the already destroyed 11,000 hectares of the 46,000 hectare forest.
He says agriculture, energy and tourism sectors are bearing the heavy brunt of the deforestation.
“From the assessment we recently carried out, Sh530,000 per hectare is lost every year from the destroyed section,” says Lambretchs, formerly the head of policy and early warning division of UN Environmental Programme.