How Baringo residents are going from weeds to wealth

By Robert Kiplagat

Baringo, Kenya: It’s a dreaded weed introduced to curb desertification in the arid areas of Baringo County but has caused more suffering to the communities than good.

However, an investment in biomass power by an American-based firm could change all that for good.

For many years, the mathenge plant (prosopis juliflora) was a menace to residents of Marigat Sub County. Many were forced to turn to charcoal burning from pastoralism as the weed suppressed all vegetation leaving no pasture for livestock.

The plant’s effects, such as decaying goats’ teeth and killing them after consumption, has forced the local Ilchamus community to sue the State for compensation.

Create employment

The weed, which also spreads fast, has blocked rivers such as Molok and Waseges, changing their course and causing them to flood villages.

Residents in the areas where the plant grows are, however, are set for better times after the firm puts up a power generation plant using the weed as a raw materail.

The company, Cummins Cogeneration (Kenya) Limited in partnership with Power Africa and USAid is set to generate 12 megawatts of renewable power and create employment for over 2,500 locals.

Speaking during the ground-breaking ceremony, USAid Associate Mark Feierstein and Cummins CEO Yash Krishna said the biomass-based power generation would create a lasting socio-economic impact on the affected communities.

Affordable energy

“Power Africa in Kenya supports the Government to achieve its goals in provision of high-quality, reliable and affordable energy for her population and it is possible with the presence of bio-mass,” said Krishna adding that the company would be in the area for over 20 years.

Residents are hopeful that the plant will end their suffering.

“If indeed we can turn this problem into a money minting venture, we thank God,” says Mary Chebet, a resident.

Chebet says the weed had taken over her small piece of land rendering it useless as she can neither cultivate nor rear goats on it.

“We look at this plant and ask God to make it disappear once and for all for we have suffered for far too long,” she says.

Benard Kimurgor, a livestock keeper, says the plant’s pods are too sweet for the goats to resist but the effects are disastrous. He says the sharp thorns are also poisonous and injuries from them take long to heal.

“Everything about the plant is just bad news but if the investors are sure of what they are talking about, for the first time we will see something positive about it,” he says with skepticism.

The invasive mathenge weed has covered over 300 acres of grazing land suppressing grass and leading to livestock deaths.

Despite the plant’s demonisation however, various researchers have discovered that prosopis can best be utilised as wood fuel, timber, fencing posts, for charcoal burning and wood carvings and its pods can be used to make nutritious livestock feeds.

Kenya Forest Research Institute (Kefri) has studied the best ways to use the obnoxious weed such as in charcoal production and also by using the weed’s pods and leaves as livestock feed. They also say that electricity can be produced from biomass.

The invasive weed now occupies over 6,000 square kilometres of the six arid and semi arid land (Asal) counties in the country.

In 2012, the Government through the Ministry of Livestock, came up with a project dubbed “The commercial and local utilisation of prosopis leaves and pods for feeding livestock, drought mitigation and restoration of grazing land” aimed at changing the perception of the plant by locals. During the prosopis conference held in Marigat, it was revealed that three million people and livestock in Asal counties were set to benefit from the innovations should the project succeed.

Research by the ministry in collaboration with the Asal-based Livestock and Rural Livelihoods Support Project, University of Nairobi and Kefri, is aimed at utilising the plant to eradicate poverty.

Lauded initiative

The researchers exuded confidence that the collection and milling of the weed’s pods for manufacturing animal feed have major impact as they would control the spread of the weed.

Currently, the weed is being used to burn charcoal, for fencing and building poles, and its pods used as livestock feed during drought seasons.

Baringo County leaders and members of the county assembly termed the initiative as a milestone in the fight against the invasive weed.