Conditions that have favored the location of the Mwea-Tebere project

 

  • Its the largest irrigation scheme in East Africa.

  • Water is got from River Thiba, River Nyamindi and River Tana.

Aims of the scheme

  • To provide employment to the political detainees.

  • To resettle the land less people.

  • To produce rice and other food crops on large scale.

  • To develop the area of North East Kenya.

Conditions that have favored the location of the Mwea-Tebere project

  • Availability of permanent water sources e.g. River Nyamindi, Thiba and Tana to provide water for irrigation.

  • The gently sloping landscape i.e. the piedmont plain on the lower slopes of mountain Kenya allowing irrigation by gravity flow.

  • The presence of fertile black volcanic soils for cotton and red clay soils which support rice growing.

  • Availability of extensive tracts of land which was sparsely populated hence providing free land for the project.

  • The area receives low and unreliable rainfall of 750mm per annum which favors irrigation.

  • Supportive government policy of setting up irrigation schemes to develop remote areas of Mwea-Tebere.

  • Availability of adequate capital for investment e.g. to purchase farm inputs and tools to be used for farming.

  • Availability of ready market both local and international for the farm produce.

  • Availability of well developed transport lines e.g. Nairobi-Nyeri railway line for delivering rice to markets.

  • Presence of landless people who were ready to be recruited and provide cheap labour to work on the scheme.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Five (5) factors influencing development of soil catena

  Soil catena is the successive arrangement or sequence of arrangement of differing soil types along the slope from the hill top (summit) to the valley bottom. This sequence varies with relief and drainage though it may be derived from the same parent material e.g. the soils at the valley bottom are likely to be different from those of the hill top.   The factors influencing the development of soil catena: Relief: which is the physical appearance (morphology) of the landscape affects or influences the development of soil catena in such a way that differences in relief affect the nature or soil type due to the fact that they influence erosion, deposition and human activities. Hill tops have lateritic capping with the resultant thin/ skeletal soils. The very steep slope/free face hardly has any soil i.e. has bare rock. The waxing slope/ convex slope is characterised by coarse, stony, creep soils due to erosion. The waning slope is fairly deep with clay loam soils....
Read more