Monicah Mbeneka Kimeu

Monicah lives in Kandula village of Kyuu location in Mbooni Division, which is in Mbooni West District in Eastern Province of Kenya. She was born in 1944 and got married in 1960 to a farmer and got involved in mixed farming, an activity she has done all her life. Unfortunately, she became widowed in 1987. She had a co-wife who also passed away in 1997, leaving six children (2 girls and 4 boys). She had her own children (2 girls and 4 boys) but one boy passed away in late 2008, leaving a widow with five small children. She is the grandmother of 22 children and great grandmother to three. Her co-wife has 21 grandchildren to date.

Monicah is an active member of several community self help groups. One such group is known as Kandula women group. This group is involved in various development activities to improve the living standard of its members. One of the main challenges this group is struggling with is how to get water enough for irrigating their farms to produce vegetables. She is also a member of the Kikima farmers cooperative society, which is implementing the CoopWorks project.

In farming, Monicah mixes different types of enterprises on her 3 acre plot – on the farm she grows maize, beans, cassava, sweet and English potatoes, apple, mangoes, avocado and macadamia. Horticulture is impossible because there is no irrigation water.

She also plants napier grass for her cows. She has two cows of mixed breed – Sahiwal, one of which she milks to make tea in the morning and in the evening for sale. However, the milk production is not much because there is not enough grass. She also has three dogs.

Monicah is also a coffee farmer and is a member of the Kikima farmers’ cooperative society by virtue of having 200 plants which give her approximately 400 kilograms of coffee each year.

Daily routine
A normal day for Monicah begins at 6 am when she wakes up to milk the cow. She then makes tea, goes to draw water and seeks for animal feeds. By 10 am she goes to the farm and works until about 2 pm when she eats lunch and waters the animals and then takes a brief rest. She will then go to group meetings and come home to prepare an evening meal, when it is available.

Problems/ Challenges she is facing
There are several challenges facing this farmer, as well as others in rural Kenya. These include but are not limited to the following: -

 Farm production is limited by unavailability of farm inputs such as manure, fertilizer, spray chemicals, etc and implements because they are too expensive
 This type of farming is only subsistence and one may never break out of poverty
 Inadequate clean water for drinking and irrigation of vegetables

Suggested solutions
Monicah feels that things could change for the better if several issues are tackleed:
 Provision of irrigation water to grow vegetables and other horticultural crops. The Kandula women group has identified a valley that, if dammed, can catch run-off water and then spread by gravity to reach the various farms.
 When there is water to grow vegetables, it will be easy to acquire micro loans to advance the production
 With a higher income, she will give her cows better nutrition – grass and dairy meal – to improve their production
 She feels that kenyans should elect better leaders who can cause development to take place at the grassroots level.