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WETLANDS INTERNATIONAL
Best Practice in Sustainable Water Resource Management
Patrick Maina, an EMU Sacco beneficiary, is a Nanyuki-based water technician and smallholder farmer. Rainwater from all the roofs in his home is harvested and channelled into storage tanks and water pans. Overflow from the reservoirs is directed onto a field where he grows fodder for hay while household wastewater is recycled and channelled to a banana farm. No water goes to waste on his farm. Maina utilises the stored water during the dry season and employs drip irrigation and technology adapted to locally available resources to minimise wastage and maximise efficiency. He keeps livestock and fish and grows drought resistant, high yielding crops on his model farm which is also a training centre for farmers from water-scarce counties such as Kajiado and Kitui.
Tim Hobbs runs a 25-hectare mixed organic farm inNanyuki. It is the only certified carbon neutral business in Kenya. The enterprise produces roses and summer flowers for export and also engages in livestock farming, beekeeping and sustainable forestry. The farm uses 1,000 cubic metres of water a day. The greenhouses collect rainwater which is channelled into dams and lagoons. All runoff is collected into a 20-acre dam with a spillover into the Burguret River. This bulk water storage facility is designed to sustain the farm for 90 days, thus eliminating the need for abstraction when river volumes are low. Water for domestic use is sourced from a borehole on the farm.
Patrick Maina with a water filter
Tim Hobbs at his flower farm in Nanyuki
“Efficient water harvesting, high value crops and improved farming techniques should be exploited to improve WASH, boost household incomes, improve livelihoods and conserve water resources in semi-arid areas.” - Stanley Kirimi
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