A brief report on the impact/effect of climate change in Tharaka

For some times now, Tharaka district like every other region globally has been badly hit by climate change. The impact is so prominent that even the elderly and the very young alike are narrating of the phenomenon. Some of the obvious indicators (as at 25th August 2009 during our normal field visit to monitor the progress of the projects) are:

1. Two irrigation schemes in the lower old Meru district in Eastern province are facing the risk of being shut down. These are the Mitunguu irrigation scheme and the Ng’uuru- Gakirwe water project. They are all operating under a very intense rationing scale. This has led to many crops being grown for export purposes dry irreversibly. Some of these crops include: bananas, pawpaw, French beans and other vegetables. Many areas used to be covered with canopies of bananas are now no more, and the remaining areas are such a shame. The Ng’uuru- Gakirwe water project is more hit and the rationing has even stopped working. Basically, this has been caused by the drastic drying of the rivers sources in the high potential areas.

2. There have been several community tree nurseries that have been closed down by the virtue of the rivers drying up. This has never happened to these semi-permanent rivers, an episode that has left the residents of the areas wide mouth open.

3. There has been a prolonged drought period in Tharaka. Though Tharaka is a very dry district and often has succumbed to drought spells, this time round it has come too early and with a lot of force. The rains were never enough this time in the last season and there are some parts in the district that never had any rains at all. This has adversely affected the harvest where some people never harvested anything and this again has affected the local seed project for women groups. This is where the women contribute seeds at the time of harvest for storage purposes so that they can have a reliable source of planting materials at the time of need.

4. Drying of ancient wet lands. There have been some old wet lands in some parts of Tharaka that are drying now in an increasingly very high rate. This in turn has affected the streams of water that used to flow from these areas towards the lower parts of Tharaka dry along the way.

5. The economic activities in Tharaka have also been adversely affected. By the drying of the wet lands, the pastoralists are now forced to walk far for long to look for water sources for their animals. The same case is applying to the women and girls. They have to walk far to fetch water for domestic use.

6. In one of the neighbouring districts, the girls have stopped going to school since over 80% of their time is allocated to water sourcing, meaning that some stay awake overnight due to the long queues and by the time they get back home they are so weary and can barely do any other work. To those who are lucky to be near the schools; once they get to the classes they are sleepy throughout the sessions, affecting the rate of concentration in class work. The circle completes when they get back home and travel to fetch the scarce commodity throughout the night again.

7. The market prices of the farm produce have also gone up drastically, raising the cost of living. This is only benefiting the merchants (mainly from far districts) who are well off and are able to buy the farm produce hot from the farms in bulk, store them and dispose them when the prices are high. This way, they are exploiting the producers who do everything they can to bring the cereals in the farm store.

These among other indicators are very prominent in Tharaka.
I wish to compile a more comprehensive report to share soon.
Surely, it would be of great importance if the request sent would be considered so that the farmers in Tharaka could be brought together and be capacity built on the outlying mitigating factors to the outstanding practices that are helping fuel the climate change and global warming.

Report compiled by:
Chabari Z.K
Programme Coordinator
Rural Initiative Development Programme (RIDEP), Kenya