Irrigation and agro-pastoralism in Southern Kenya

By R.V. Weesie, P. Ole Twala and S. Riamit

STUDY AREA: MAJI MOTO

Maji Moto is a group ranch of roughly 500 square kilometers located at the edge of the Rift Valley in semi-arid Southern Kenya. The area is characterized by rocky, sandy and partially degraded hillsides surrounded by lower grazing lands. The Maasai communities living here are traditionally mobile pastoralists relying on cattle rearing as the basis for their livelihoods. More recently agro-pastoralism has emerged, practiced by sedentary farmers who cultivate the land as well as keep livestock. Furthermore, wildlife uses the savannah as a migratory route and grazing grounds, such as wildebeest and zebra. The name Maji Moto, Kiswahili for ‘hot water’, refers to the centrally located hot spring (Enkare Nairowua), providing a perennial water supply on which much of the rural Maasai population depends throughout the year. There is a second ground water source located around 20 kilometers from Enkare Nairowua, called the Entiangasir spring. Additionally, several seasonal streams are important sources of water for a third of the year. Rainfall is bimodal with the long rains usually occurring in March-May and the short rains normally falling from November through December.

Agro-pastoralists are located near the hot spring, as its water is used for irrigation purposes. The farming activities are a result of the arrival of missionaries in the late 1970s. Irrigation schemes were initiated, creating a possibility for a number of Maasai pastoralists to settle and adopt farming activities, growing crops such as maize and tomatoes combined with traditional livestock keeping. As a consequence of the rise of agro-pastoral activities, the population living off the hot spring’s water grew rapidly throughout the 1980s and 1990s, reaching 9000 people in 2000. The resulting rise in water demand in combination with an increased frequency of droughts made Maji Moto chronically food insecure. Livestock was lost, and famines occurred during severe droughts. As a response, at the end of the 1990s missionaries built a water dam and pans, a windmill pump and irrigation channels connected to the hot spring’s stream. By capturing the water, a better water supply for the (agro) pastoralists, domestic users, and newly emerged local businesses was created. Despite the increase in water supply from the water pans, it was still not sufficient to provide for many pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods during droughts. Additionally, the dams were not well maintained, resulting in a lower water supply at the early 2000s. As a result many people in the Maji Moto Group Ranch still lacked a stable provision of water and food in an increasingly drying climate.

Maji moto community water project

In 2002, a younger generation of farmers and a local community-based organisation (‘Touch of Love’, which later changed its name to Indigenous Livelihood Enhancement Partners, ILEPA) recognized the water shortages and resulting conflicts during dry spells in the Maji Moto. They instigated the community-based ‘Maji Moto Community Water Project’ (MMCWP) in cooperation with the Maji Moto community and in partnership with the UNDP’s and GEF’s funded Small Grants Programme (SGP). The project was mainly funded by the SGP and the local government of the Maji Moto Group Ranch, respectively providing nearly 20,000 and 4,000 USD. Implementation took place in 2006 and 2007. It mainly focused on increasing water supply of the hot spring, entailing the rehabilitation of the dams, the reparation of a water pump driven by a wind mill, installing drip irrigation systems, and de-silting and protecting the water pan by fencing and the planting of grass and trees. Additional to these technical fixes, the MMCWP organized a conflict resolution workshop with all stakeholders related to the water source, and aimed to train the community on managing their own projects related to water use, such as drip irrigation. According to the SGP, the MMCWP was “satisfactory completed”. As a result of the technical fixes water supply has increased, which can be considered as a positive outcome. The rise in water abundance for the users of Maji Moto’s hot springs heightened opportunities for pastoralists to maintain their livestock, and for recently settled agro-pastoralists to access water for irrigation during dry spells. It also provided water needed by local businesses as well as drinking water for the local communities. Thereby, the adaptive capacity was improved for most sectors of the community. Nonetheless the MMCWP project could not prevent famine as a result of prolonged droughts in 2009. Regardless, settling down near the hot springs remained attractive for agro-pastoralists, and the Maji Moto population grew to around 11,000 by 2015.

Research

As the MMCWP aimed to increase adaptive capacity for the communities living in Maji Moto, the project can be framed as an adaptation intervention in the face of a drying climate. The project stimulated the emergence of agro-pastoralists using the water from the hot springs for irrigation. This has created new social dynamics in terms of conflict and cooperation between the different water user groups with competing claims, primarily between the sedentary agro-pastoralists and mobile pastoralists.

Taking the Maji Moto Group Ranch as a case study this research analyses new dynamics of conflict and cooperation resulting from the MMCWP. Social capital theory is used as an explanatory framework in the analysis of these dynamics. Specifically, this research analyses the social dynamics between different water user groups, in the context of land privatization and the emergence of sedentary farming activities alongside traditionally existing pastoral livelihoods. Because this context creates new competing claims on land and water in proximity to the hot spring, this research also investigates if and how related conflicts are resolved. Deriving from this analysis, the research aims to formulate suggestions as to how adaptation interventions related to common pool water resources in drying landscapes can be designed in such a way that competing claims are taken into account, conflicts are negated and cooperation is stimulated between the different user groups. Therefore, this research is contributing in working towards inclusive climate change interventions in adaptation landscapes such as the semi-arid plains of Maji Moto.

To achieve the aims of the research, the fieldwork first seeks to identify the different stakeholders related to the use of the hot spring’s water. Stakeholders are identified as belonging to certain user groups, such as pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, local businesses and domestic users. Secondly the fieldwork collects and analyses spatial data on the location of different user groups, and privatized/fenced lands which was previously communally owned, to visualize patterns of changed accessibility of the water and land related to the MMCWP. Thirdly, the fieldwork seeks to analyze the levels of the ‘bonding’ and ‘bridging’ social capital that exists (or not) between the different water user groups, and particularly how this changed as a result of the MMCWP. Social capital within and between these user groups is identified using indicators such as social cohesion and trust. Finally, based on the analysis, suggestions are made as to what factors have to be taken into consideration when designing conflict-sensitive, inclusive adaptation interventions that create an abundance of a common pool water resource in a scarcity landscape. 

RESEARCH FINDINGS

1. An adaptation intervention creating abundance of a shared water resource in a scarcity landscape creates new competing claims on the shared water resource. Abundance is not equally created for all water user groups, and low levels of bridging social capital between advantaged and disadvantaged groups in using the resource’s abundance may be a trigger for new conflicts. Therefore, adaptation interventions such as these may increase the propensity of conflict between different water users.
2. An adaptation intervention on a common pool water resource can change the water users’ patterns of mobility and land property, resulting in new competing claims on (previously) communally owned land. Processes of sedentarization and privatization are stimulated by the adaptation intervention, affecting adaptive capacity of groups that are excluded or disadvantaged in these processes.