Kenyan turning Puntland into a horticultural hub

Isaac Mudavadi, a Kenyan horticultural farmer at Gordo District in Puntland State of Somalia at a tomato farm growing in a green house [Nathan Ochunge, Standard]

As we walked in the scorching sun at Gordo District in Puntland State of Somalia, a strong, dry and dust laden wind started blowing in the desert.

We quickly went back to our car to shield ourselves from the strong winds that were blowing towards our direction.

Somalia is a total dryland and unproductive with majority of its inhabitants being pastoralists.

The country is mainly a desert as it is in the rain shadow region of the Ethiopian Highlands.

The country’s climate is hot and dry and experiences uneven rainfall and regular droughts throughout the year, between December to February experiences northeast monsoon winds.

This time, the temperatures in the north become moderate and hot in the south.

Between May and October, the country experiences southwest monsoon winds and when it occurs, the north is extremely hot.

Pastoralism has remained the main economic activity since the collapse of the Central Government of Somalia in early 90’s which led to the collapse of the agriculture sector due to lack of extension services.

Before the collapse of the government, at least 25 per cent of the country’s labour force was in the agriculture sector. Somalia heavily relied on Jubba and Shabelle rivers to irrigate their horticultural farms but after the civil war, everything came to a halt. 

And with frequent droughts, the pastoralists whose livestock died have been forced to look for alternative means to earn a living.

But Isaac Mudavadi, 33, a Kenyan who hails from Kakamega County is in Somalia on a mission: to change the lives of the community from being pastoralists to farmers and for the last two years, his work is being felt.

“I am a horticultural farmer and an expert in greenhouse farming. One of my farmers in Kenya introduced me to his boss and after knowing each other, he asked me if am able to start horticultural farming in Somalia using the greenhouse technology,” said Isaac.

“Given that Somalia is a desert soils are unproductive, I accepted the new challenge on condition that we started the project as a pilot and we expand it only if it becomes viable. We agreed to start with tomatoes.”

Language barrier

Isaac said when he set foot in Somalia, his main duty was to construct a greenhouse measuring 80 metres by 40 metres.

“First, we had to get labourers from Ethiopia since the people in Gardo district are pastoralists and are not used to farming. Language barrier really worked against us but after sometime, we employed the services of a translator who taught the labourers English,” said Isaac.

According to Isaac, they prepared raised beds to fine tilth and the depth should be at least 45cm deep in order to give the tomatoes enough aeration since it is extremely hot. That also enables them to grow their roots.

“If your bed is raised a foot high, the growth of the tomatoes will be stunted,” said Isaac adding that like most vegetables, tomatoes like well-draining, nitrogen-rich soil with a pH of around 6.5 for maximum production.

The horticultural expert further said that after the beds were ready, they applied a lot of farm manure mainly ‘goat manure’ as it is good in water retention as compared to manure from the cows.

“We drenched the beds with fungicides and then covered the soil with a special nylon paper to kill pests like nematodes which are disastrous in the area,” he said.

He said after a month, you plant the seedlings you have prepared raised in trays and are place them in the holes prepared on the driplines on the beds at a spacing of 30cm between the crop and 45cm from line to line.

“We planted 12,000 seedlings in the greenhouse using diammonium phosphate (DAP). Its gives the tomatoes full phosphorus nutrition throughout to enhance its growth and as a starter dose of nitrogen and low sulphur required root development,” said Isaac.

According to Isaac, in order to ensure they got maximum productivity, they had to feed well the tomatoes using nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) fertiliser or calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) fertiliser for top dressing.

He said after a month of planting, they drenched the soils again using anti-nematicides, adding that nematodes in saline soils multiply very fast and must be controlled in order to get good yields.

He said they used to also spray the tomatoes with pest control chemicals on weekly basis.

“We employed the trellising technique (tie the tomatoes on strings) to keep them off the ground in order to avoid them from picking pests and improve productivity by increasing the fruit size as well as prevent them from rotting,” said Isaac.

“Watering is done daily using the drip system in which the water is allowed to flow in the morning, midday and in the evening,”

Drip system is crop irrigation involving the controlled delivery of water directly to individual plants through a network of tubes or pipes.

“After 90 days of transplanting the tomatoes are ready for harvesting, this is done by selecting matured tomatoes and leaving the young ones to continue growing. Harvesting for three consecutive months when the crops and then you prepare the ground ready for the next planting.”

Fifteen greenhouses

He said each stem gave them at least 10 kilogrammes and a kilogramme of tomatoes in Somalia goes for  Sh81 in Kenya.

If each seedling gave them 10kgs of tomatoes, then for 12,000 seedlings, they harvested 120,000kgs of tomatoes worth Sh6.79 million.

Then the tomatoes are weighed and sorted into grades 1, 2 and 3. Grades 1 and 2 are for export to Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia while Grade Three is for local consumption.

He said the project proved fruitful and now they have fifteen greenhouses under tomatoes, capsicum, onions and carrots and that they are expecting to export at least 500 tons of tomatoes by mid this year.

“Water is one of the main challenges we face as we are forced to buy two trucks of water daily for irrigation at 35 dollars per day. Heavy winds which blows through the greenhouse also makes the tomatoes lose flowers during the flowering season,” said Abdirizak Yusuf Ibrahim, one of the managers at the farm.

According to Abdirizak, the demand for their quality tomatoes is very high and they are considering converting over 20 acres to drip irrigation in order to meet the market demands.

“If we had resources, we could have tapped water from the Juba and Shabelle rivers, the only perennial rivers in the country and use it for irrigation and convert Somalia in to an agricultural country,” said Abdirizak.

Bilali Kweyu, an agronomist from Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, said that for Somalia to be food secure, irrigation is the way to go.

Kweyu said that besides the greenhouse technology, the country's needs should take lessons from Israel that is a desert but food secure since they invested heavily in technology.

“Kenya has many extension officers and what Somalia needs is to sign a trade agreement with the government that will see it import expertise from Kenya,” said Kweyu.