History of the Scheme

Senior Manager of Mwea Scheme

Mwea Irrigation Scheme is situated in Kirinyaga district, in Central province of Kenya. The Scheme is about 100 Km South East of Nairobi. Farming in the scheme started in 1956, rice has been the predominant crop in the scheme. The scheme has a gazetted area of 30,350 acres. A total of 16,000 acres has been developed for paddy production. The rest of the scheme is used for settlement, public utilities, subsistence and horticultural crops farming. The scheme is served by two main rivers VIZ Nyamindi and Thiba rivers. Irrigation water is abstracted from the rivers by gravity by the help of fixed intake weirs, conveyed and distributed in the scheme via unlined open channels. There is a link canal joining the two rivers which transfers water from Nyamindi to Thiba River which serves about 80% of the scheme. Land tenure is on tenancy basis. Since inception till 1998 the scheme was being run by various government agencies. In 1998, the scheme management was taken over by a Mwea Rice Farmer’s cooperative society MRGM. However, the farmers realized that they could not go it alone due to:

• Unskilled personnel
• Lack of finances
• Lack of machinery for scheme maintenance.

During this brief period when scheme was run by cooperative the infrastructure deteriorated and tail enders could not crop. In 2003, the farmers approached the government for assistance in the scheme management.

Challenges facing the Scheme

Mwea Rice

Currently, the scheme is being run by National Irrigation Board, NIB, and the farmers Organizations, mainly the Water Users Association, WUA. NIB is responsible of all the main infrastructure, water management in the main and secondary canals, making of cropping program and land administration in the scheme. WUA is responsible of water management in the tertiary unit, facility maintenance in the tertiary units except roads and farmers payment of O&M fee. Marketing of rice is open for farmers to decide where to sell but the farmers society, the National Cereal and Produce Board, NCPB, are presently the main players. At the moment farmers do not have a stable credit provider since the farmer’s savings and credit society collapsed. Farmers in the meantime are making do with commercial banks and microfinance institutions.

Maintenance and Operation of Scheme

• The scheme farmers pay NIB a flat rate of Kshs 2,000.00 per acre for farmers from out growers. This money is meant for scheme infrastructure maintenance and water management.
• At the beginning of each financial year, the scheme NIB management together with WUA officials sits together and comes up with a cropping program and maintenance programs which reflects the amount of money expected from the farmers. Scheme NIB management and WUA holds a monitoring and evaluation meeting once a month.

The challenges include:

1. Water shortages – since 1998, about 4000 acres of land has been developed into paddy cultivation. This expansion was not planned in terms of water supply and control
2. Poor state of infrastructure – most of the infrastructure in the scheme need rehabilitation
3. Lack of infrastructure – In the expansion area, there are no infrastructure, especially roads\, drains and water control gates
4. Low management skills of the WUA officials- WUA official have not been adequately trained to efficiently play their role

Way forward

1. Increase water storage within the scheme
2. Continue intensive training of the WUAs
3. To hand over more responsibilities to the WUAs
4. Finally transfer the Irrigation management to the WUAs