Sasa unaongea nini. Only 2 percent of kalenjin depend on gov and it's patronage network. The rest - kalenjin will plant 10 or 20 acres of maize or tea or name - harvest - sell - pay school fees for the year and go enjoy himself in Mombasa. Umefika nairobi or kisumu or eldoret or kericho slums ukapata kalenjin uko
except walevi. Yet kalenjin are 3rd largest tribe. Hiyo ni upuzi - and now kalenjin are becoming watchmen because agricluture is failing.
kalenjin dream is simple - plant serious crops - sio hiyo yenu ya mama na watoto (1 acre
) - buy car or pickup or a tractor or a lorry - and enjoy life.
If you check tractors or pickups or lorries or trailers or such kind of cars - majority are owned by Kalenjin men.
If you want to fix agricluture - start with fixing KFA or start Farmers Bank - that will operate in farming seasons - lend you money in january to buy fertilizers - give you money to hire tractors - then pay farm workers - halafu - during harvest - the bank get their money -kalenjin man buy himself a car after paying all annual school fees - and remainder he goes to Mombasa for 'summer break' - like Mzungu - then after 3 months - he comes back and start the planting season again.
That kind of commercial farming ndio Kalenjin understands.
Hii yenu ya micro-micro-small-holder - one acre with everything
macademia, coffee, miraa, tea, name it - everything iko in one acre - kwetu it's like a school farm project
for teaching kids agricluture; or mostly ni ya WAMAMA
GARDEN farming.
Again - WSR knows how to fix agriculture - FARM INPUTS - na sio kamikaze ya wameru hapo - I mean I need to go to KFA or NCPB - pick a lorry full of fertlizers - plant - harvet - and pay BACK.
Commercial FARMING. SIO MCHEZO ya WATOTO - na - WAMAMA - tiny farm with everything - hiyo ni garden farming boss.
After Kalenjin - the next serious farmers I saw in East Africa - were Banyakole in Uganda - and Tutsi in Rwanda - people who each keep 100 grade cows - plant 50 acres of maize - and 20 acres of Bananas.
Meru sasa if you plant 20 acres of banana - si Munya will come see you
- and that is what average banyakole (baHima) man has as a side project
Go everywhere Kalenjin are big farmers - Narok, Mt elgon, transzoia, name it - even if you finance kalenjin they will go with tractors to uganda and south sudan - and do proper farming.
But garden farming hio ya bantu - ni michezo- ya wamama - few self respecting kalenjin will do that kind of business- one acre has always been garden farm for women plus a few cattle and calves - Men are out there doing serious business.
When Ruto was agri ministers - gov was importing tonnes of subsidized fertilizers - and farmers were queeing in lorries to pick them - hiyo ndio serious farming - sio michezo.
As a minimum no fertilizers - no farming. SAHAU. We need to apply 5 times the fertilizer to get to Asia and developed world standards. Then we can talk. Fertilizers in kila kitu - from tea to maize to name. Bila - then we do garden farming - organic fertilizers - enough to sustain really small families like in GEMA - and spare few for the market.