As Kenya begins the national conversation on what should come beyond Vision 2030, the fundamental question to guide us is: what resources do we own today that can transform Kenya into the country we aspire to be?
History offers good lessons. Successful economies identified strategic advantages and organised around converting them into productivity. Singapore for example had almost no natural resource base and only about 728 km² of land, so it leveraged its location, port, trade, manufacturing and human capital.
China’s transformation began, in part, with agricultural reforms after 1978, raising rural productivity and incomes while releasing labour for industrialisation. Vietnam similarly used farming to move from food shortages to becoming one of the world’s largest rice exporters.
The lesson is that nations transform by making available resources productive.
Kenya has three major assets: extensive agricultural land, a large and youthful population, and abundant renewable energy in geothermal, hydro, wind and solar.
Agriculture contributes about 24 percent of GDP, while about 72 percent of the population derives its livelihood directly or indirectly from the sector. Yet much of our agriculture remains dependent on rainfall.
Kenya has an estimated 3.5 million acres of irrigation potential, but only about 747,000 acres (just 21.3 percent of our irrigation potential) are under irrigation. This leaves more than 2.7 million of untapped potential. That is not simply an agricultural statistic; it is an economic transformation opportunity. Commercial large-scale irrigation should, therefore, be treated as strategic national infrastructure.
For decades, transformational infrastructure has meant roads, railways and power systems; all these are equally important, but a strategically located multipurpose dam can make land productive, provide municipal and industrial water, control floods, support irrigation and, where feasible, generate electricity. That is productive infrastructure.
As an example in northern Kenya, it is difficult to reconcile recurring food insecurity in parts of Isiolo and Samburu with the Ewaso Nyiro river system flowing through vast areas of potentially irrigable land. The problem is that we have not invested sufficiently in storing and conveying it to where it creates economic value.
The proposed Isiolo/Basilinga Dam on the Ewaso Nyiro River is precisely the kind of project that should be viewed through this wider economic lens.
The same applies to Daua Dam in Mandera. High Grand Falls on the Tana River offers another example of the multipurpose model, combining water storage, irrigation and hydropower. These projects should be evaluated by the economic value created downstream.
Kenya’s plan identifies 50 strategic dams, 41 with irrigation components, with potential to expand irrigation by more than two million acres. This is the scale at which a new vision should think.
Every major dam should have an economic plan: how many acres will be irrigated; what will be produced; who will process it; where will it be sold; what storage and energy will be required; and how private capital will participate. Reliable irrigation enables consistent production.
Consistent production enables agro-processing, higher-value products, jobs and exports. Agriculture should no longer be treated principally as a rural livelihood issue. It should be treated as an industrial sector.
Kenya’s ambition should go beyond food security. We should become a regional food and agro-processing powerhouse. Irrigation can support rice, horticulture, fruits, vegetables, oilseeds and livestock feed; processing can turn these into higher-value products for domestic and regional markets.
But infrastructure alone is insufficient. We must also change our educational training system. I find it difficult to understand why, at this stage of Kenya’s development, irrigation engineering remains largely treated as a sub-discipline of civil engineering. If irrigation is to be a pillar of national transformation, Kenya needs to elevate it as a serious professional and academic discipline, drawing together hydrology, hydraulics, agronomy, agricultural economics and water management.
Our curriculum should introduce practical agriculture, water management and cooperative principles early. Cooperative education is important because small producers need institutions through which they can aggregate production, access finance, machinery, technology and markets.
Samson Bundi is a civil engineer
