Five years ago, Muli Elijah was an insignificant farmer tucked somewhere in Makuka village, a dusty hamlet outside the giant Ngomeni rock catchment. As if to contrast plenty and want, Muli’s household never knew constant water supply until they excavated an earth pan just within the compound. The move was a departure from trekking all the way to the famed water reservoir just to fetch water for drinking, washing and watering the animals.

She now uses the Sh.2000 compensation to pay school fees, buy goats and clothes for her household. She also does tree planting and buys farm inputs.

Before excavating terraces she harvested less than a 50 kg sack of cowpeas but now she has 35 bags of unprocessed cowpeas in her modern granary. Additionally, she has three sacks of dry pigeon peas and three more of dolicos lab lab . She prefers to store the cowpeas in their pods since they do not attract weevils as when they are ready for consumption. As a best practice, she threshes them when she needs the grains for family consumption.  As a rule, she does not sell the cowpeas so that she does not hand the brokers leverage over her hard earned resources at a throw a way price only for the latter to resell the produce to her at an exorbitant price.

Muli has also diversified her income sources by baking 4000 bricks which are ready for sale at Sh.10 each. Her earth pan sustains water from March to September each year. This enables her to survive throughout the drought period. Her clients include Mang’uu Primary School where her children attend classes.

Each month, she earns Sh.1000 from selling water to her neighbors. This has increased her spending power that sees her family use about Sh.400 per day. Further, she is a member of Ngomeni Beekeepers table banking initiated by ActionAid. She acquired six chairs each at a cost of Sh.600 thanks to the rotational asset creation from her group.

The 37 year old mother of seven says: “When it hasn’t rained we cannot harvest. But because of terraces establishment we harvest run off water in order to increase yield.”

Muli advises her colleagues to develop self-drive and innovation. She said: “Do not just wait for ActionAid to be helping you year in year out. You should also put your own effort in improving your situation.” Out of 92 households in her village, five are model sites and Muli is credited for mentoring the beneficiaries on soil and water conservation and agribusiness.

She says that if you have land, cattle farming do well but cereals must be accompanied by rain water especially during the long rains in November through January. The short rains in March must be utilized well by planting early and doing so in the terraced fields as well as investing in pest control for maximum production.

Thanks to her hard work, Muli has 30 goats, seven cattle [1 heifer and six bulls] and 20 chickens. This is a stark contrast from just five goats in 2011 and no cattle.

She declares thus: “There is no problem with our soil. The only challenge is water availability.”

Whenever she has cash flow issues, she relies on her herd of goats as the fall back plan. In the past, she could only make do with causal wages.

In April this year, Muli bought a motorbike at a cost of Sh.90000.  The motorbike does public transport in Ngomeni market to supplement family income. The minimum return she expects from the laborer is Sh.400 per day and he [the laborer] does not disappoint.

Muli believes that planting certified seeds in time will boost the crop’s survival rates. She says, “If seeds get rotten due to poor rain patterns it is upon me to redo the field again otherwise my output will diminish. This means I must have an additional budget for seeds.”

Occasionally, Muli sends elders to warn neighbors whose cattle stray into her farm. The trespass is minimized by fencing the farm and reinforcing it from time to time.

She also desilts the earth pan and deepens it in order to hold more water. She seals gullies around her farm with the excavated soil displaced from the earth pan. She adds that she is ready for the next phase of transition having attained food security.