A perspective of Gilchrist Owuor Okuom the Kisumu County Executive Committee Member (CECM) for Agriculture, Irrigation, Livestock and Fisheries
Achieving sustainable development has become a key area of focus for African cities, counties and provinces. Most governments are looking for dynamic ways of addressing the challenges facing their people and come up with solutions that favor long-term development.
With a holistic approach, African cities and towns are able to catalyze consistent economic growth among their people and foster future opportunities for development. Kisumu City, Kenya is the host of the 9th Africities summit, and it is therefore important we dissect the various approaches being used to re-energize efforts in activating more economic growth avenues for the lakeside city.
Gilchrist Owuor Okuom is the Kisumu County Executive Committee Member (CECM) for Agriculture, Irrigation, Livestock and Fisheries. Success Afrika’s Christopher Oyier and Mical Imbukwa sat with him in the heart of Kisumu City to dissect the county’s agriculture sector as it is.
The state of fish in Lake Victoria
The county hosts a section of Lake Victoria, one of the freshwater lakes in Kenya. The lake also serves Uganda and Tanzania. There are great concerns over the decline in fish catch in Lake Victoria.
Gilchrist Owuor Okuom says that the lake’s fish catch has been overtaken by the demand for fish in Kisumu County and in other parts of Kenya. The pressure on the water body in the production of fish is immense and the Kisumu County Government has been working on a number of interventions to address these challenges.
It is worth noting that some fishermen go into the lake without any specific regulations. Okuom admitted that as a county, they have not been able to fully regulate how they do their fishing but believe an East African approach will be a rewarding engagement.
“Lake Victoria is a shared resource among a number of East African countries. We need to coordinate our activities as East African countries in a way that sustains fishing within the lake in the said countries. This will handle issues like using illegal fishing gear. Mismatch in legislation is still a challenge. Common legislation can work if adhered to in the three East African countries,” Okuom says
Alive to the fact that continuous fishing is not good for the Lake Victoria ecosystem, the Kisumu County Government believes that going back to closing the lake for some time will help replenish fish in the lake. According to him, the move will give fish enough time to breed.
This intervention comes with huge financial challenges for fishermen who solely depend on fishing for income. CEC Okuom says, they are encouraging fishermen to have other economic activities/livelihoods to engage in so that when the lakes are closed, they have other sources of livelihood.
Cage fish farming
Previously, a few foreign investors were the only ones doing cage fish farming in the lake. Kisumu County Government has taken steps to allow and help local fish farmers to engage in cage fish farming. This has created harmony between foreign investors and local fishermen.
The county government has also worked to resolve the frosty relationship between catch fishermen and the cage fishermen in the lake by allowing all fishermen to have some cages. CEC Okuom is keen to note that cage fish farming comes with many considerations around keeping the Lake Victoria ecosystem safe and flexible.
“The use of Lake Victoria for cage fish farming is good but we must know how many cages can be there at once. It is a sure bet for those who invest in it. Here comes the challenge – the nylons used on the cages as well the feeds hence, foreign products are not healthy for the lake. All these must be used in a sustainable way,” Okuom says
According to the CEC, the wastes from the fish concentrated in a small area pollute the water.
“We need to agree on how many cages a specific area can accommodate. We have to create waterways from transport vessels. We need to identify brooding areas for fish so that we avoid putting fish cages there. We must guard against overpopulating the lake to manage issues like oxygen levels balance,” he adds
The Kisumu County Government has also invested in the capacity building for fishermen and bringing new and sustainable technology for fishing. They work with the Beach Management Units (BMUs) that manage landing beaches all over Kisumu County, a network that they use to pass policy and intervention messages to the fishermen as well as harmonize their actions. They use this network to make fishermen know that Lake Victoria is their natural resource and they have to protect it.
Aquaculture
Aquaculture is a booming economy that increases the production of fish in natural and man-made water bodies. Kisumu County Government is implementing a funded aquaculture business development programme.
The main goal of this programme is to promote fish farming/aquaculture off the lake to get the minds of locals off the lakes. The county hopes that the programme will encourage more farmers to continue with fish farming off the lake. It will in turn increase the number of fish that the county gets both from their fish pond farms and in the lake.
Commercialized agriculture
To create a sustainable economic development around agriculture, Kisumu County Government has made major efforts in encouraging its people to move from traditional subsistence farming to a value-chain approach in commercialized agriculture.
For those who have experienced it, subsistence farming is where you do farming for your stomach and most of the time, it is never enough.
“Commercializing agriculture in villages increases economic return in the chain of production. It enables producers, seed manufacturers, agrovets, real farmers, transporters, etc to get income from agricultural activities in the county,” Okuom states
He, however, notes that commercial agriculture is controlled and overridden by interest and passion. Therefore, those willing to venture in it as a side job and are looking at becoming successful must have the two qualities.
Embracing technology in agriculture is part of the modern-day revolution. This was necessitated by the limited access to government and county resources and agricultural extension officers. In addressing this challenge, Kisumu County Government initiated a 12-hour toll-free Call Center where farmers can call and be advised on various issues related to farming.
“The county government further increases its reach to farmers through established common interest groups in the villages. Through them, Kisumu County assists farmers in capacity building through information dissemination, time-to-time linkage to a physical agricultural extension officer and through plugging-in most agricultural graduates from the universities to the farmers for assistance,” the CEC says
The county government has adopted several model farms/learning centers in the villages and takes other farmers to learn from the designated centers. Kisumu County has also been involved with seed companies and chemical manufacturing companies to organize field days within the wards and sub-counties.
In Kenya, agriculture is a devolved function that is run by county governments with help from the national government on collective approaches. With the presence of ward agricultural officers, ward fisheries officers and ward livestock officers, the integration efforts by the county government are yielding fruits.
Shun the donor mentality
CEC Okuom says the Kisumu County Government is discouraging the ‘donor mentality’. For him, sympathy is a weakness if both parties are not giving something to work on the solution. He further notes that every businessman starts a business with some capital and therefore encourages fishermen and other farmers in the county to have something on the table when they are seeking help.
“The donor mentality where you are always being helped and given is not empowerment. When you do giveaways, you are really not helping that person. There is a huge fish business in Congo. People come all the way from Congo to Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya to get fish. We can produce it here in Kisumu and because we have transport across the lake, it is cheaper to get them from here. When fishermen are in organized groups like the BMU network, which we support, that is where we start,” he explains
Feed business
The agricultural expert insists that farmers should embrace the use of local resources to enrich their soil to avoid continuous dependence on imported fertilizers. He adds that the feed business is a great business frontier that will benefit many people including soya beans farmers if they expand their farming. Soya Beans give proteins as part of livestock and fish feeds and will always be a resource on demand for fish and livestock farmers. Okuom notes that Kisumu County Government is creating an integrated approach where their crops assist in fish and livestock farming.
“We should work on getting our people to contractual farming. When Zambia closed their borders for animal feeds, most of our feed manufacturers had to close shops. We must make legislation that is friendly to agriculture. I feel we are giving agriculture too much lip service. We have challenges in various sectors of agriculture because of cartels. We want to import to make a ‘kill’ and that is a weakness. We should work on getting more than one product from sugarcane. From a maize plant, no part should go to waste depending on how you use it. We have to continue encouraging rotational farming and avoid producing the same crop on the same piece of land year-in-year-out.” He concludes.
