Irrigation on the move: How transient farming partnerships facilitate the expansion of smallholder irrigation along ephemeral rivers in dryland areas of Kenya

Irrigation is commonly viewed as an activity fixed in time and place requiring permanent infrastructure. However, smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa engage in irrigation in diverse locations under different organizational modalities. This research analyses a flexible and dynamic form of irrigation driven by unique partnerships between migrants and local actors who derive benefits from land and water resources along a sand river. The case study of the ephemeral Olkeriai sand river in Kajiado, Kenya, was based on a baseline survey of 107 farm plots and 23 in-depth interviews with farmers. We found that 75% of the farm plots were managed under transient farming partnerships between migrant farmers and capital providers, locally known as tajiris, who leased land from local landowners to grow high-value market crops. These partnerships are based on flexible agreements between the actors and the frequent need to review and re-build them creates a fertile ground for new entrepreneurial players from within and outside the area, playing a key role in accelerating irrigation intensification and expansion. However, these irrigation ventures are not always successful. Unreliable partners, unstable market channels and increasing costs of irrigation inputs frequently result in farm losses and breaking up of partnership ventures. Furthermore, the lack of collective action among various resource users at the catchment level raises questions on how to sustainably manage the natural resources in sand rivers.