Inside William Ruto’s 98-Acre Koilel Farm Where Abiy Ahmed Toured After Mashujaa Day

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed got a closer look at President William Ruto’s farming operation on Tuesday, October 20, when the two leaders drove to Koilel Farm in Uasin Gishu county straight after the Mashujaa Day celebrations in Eldoret. Abiy had been the chief guest at the national event.

Photos from the visit show the two men walking through the farm together. Ruto wore a colourful short-sleeve shirt with a purple collar, while Abiy chose a blue mandarin-collar outfit, a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses.

In one image, they stand inside a large open-sided barn among rows of Holstein-type dairy cows held in blue headlock stalls, with hay and feed scattered across the floor.

Another shows a young black-and-white calf with yellow ear tags in its own pen. Outside one of the farm’s blue iron-sheet buildings, the leaders can be seen chatting and gesturing.

Koilel Farm sits in Moiben constituency, on the outskirts of Eldoret, about 14 kilometres from the Eldoret-Nakuru Highway. It covers roughly 98 acres and mixes crop growing with livestock keeping.

Maize and vegetables are the main crops, and much of that harvest goes back into feeding the animals and supporting chicken feed production.

The dairy section runs on modern methods, including Total Mixed Ration feeding and mechanised milking. The herd is mostly high-yielding Friesian and Holstein-type cattle, with some beef animals such as Angus.

The setup is big and technology-driven, a clear contrast to the small family plots common in the region. Ruto has opened the farm to cameras and tours before, presenting it as an example of what commercial agriculture in Kenya can look like. Tuesday’s visit gave Abiy a firsthand view of that idea.

Ruto also runs a large enterprise in Sugoi that includes poultry, beekeeping, maize and fruit farming, with thousands of birds and an incubator for hatching chicks. He has previously said the poultry business earns good daily income from egg sales.

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