Enterprise
Selu rekindles Galana Kulalu food security dream with record yield
Thursday January 25 2024
Hadija Kalama working in the National Irrigation Authority Sunflower trial project farm at Galana Kulalu in Tana River County on January 18, 2024. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
At the onset of the Galana Kulalu project in 2013, the then Jubilee Government envisioned that the giant irrigation project would pull the country out of its perennial food insecurity that has punished citizens to sky-high inflation.
But midway, the project would be rocked by corruption scandals that almost brought it to its knees. However, one company, Selu Limited, took the hard lessons from its predecessors and is now succeeding where several others before it failed having burnt billions of shillings in unbankable trials.
On the day we visit the company’s land in the hot and dry semi-arid vast lands of Galana Kulalu, which borders Kilifi and Tana River counties, the firm’s chief executive officer Nicolas Ambanya is on normal rounds inspecting the farm, days after a bumper harvest of 1,200 metric tonnes in the 2023 season, where it completed three-year pilot projects under public-private partnership.
The firm says its pilot realised record-breaking maize yields of up to 35, 90-kg bags an acre, the highest ever recorded in Galana Kulalu’s history and close to four times the national average and has now set its eyes on expanding its operations on the farm covering 20,000 acres as it seeks to move the project into its commercial phase.
Chief Executive Officer at Selu Limited, Nicholas Ambanya standing at the shores of River Galana in Tana River County on January 18, 2024. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
For a project marred with misinformation and corruption allegations, Mr Ambanya credits its success to key strategic partnerships with soil scientists, seed engineers, and researchers.
After working behind the scenes for months, Selu, which means Giraffe in the Samoan language, reveals it has concluded the initial development phase of 500 acres, which involved a feasibility assessment to evaluate the viability of large-scale commercial maize farming in the 1.75 million-acre government-owned ranch.
But just how was Selu able to pull this off in such conditions?
“We leveraged best global practices through partnerships with a consortium of experts like Leaf Africa, Ocampo Brazil, and BrazAfric to implement such large commercial tropical farming systems like our project,” Mr Ambanya explains.
“With the experience of these three, we were able to identify the right crop varieties suited for a lowland altitude. We also partnered with crop nutritional analysts who assessed and analysed the soil and informed us what the kind of soil in Galana needs and what kind of fertiliser will be suitable for this area.”
Mr Ambanya notes that the company also partnered with fertiliser and other farm input companies to come up with the best blends for the desired maize produce.
Water supply
The project was supported majorly by irrigation with water pumped from river Galana, which is a few metres from the farm.
“We dwelled purely on irrigated agriculture and the plan now is to build more water reservoirs and dams to support the farming activities here,” Mr Ambanya said.
A worker arranging sacks of maize at a maize store at Galana Kulalu in Tana River County on January 18, 2024. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
The farms were designed in a circular manner to permit the irrigation pivots to serve all crops equally as intended. Apart from irrigation, the pivots owned by the National Irrigation Authority (NIA), are used to introduce farm inputs like fertilisers and pesticides to control any infestations.
Storage
Mr Ambanya then leads us to the storage area with dryers, combined harvesters, and warehouses under the security of General Service Unit officers.
He explains that in there were 13,000 bags of 50 kg bags of maize (standard packaging), a remainder of total yield that had been partially sold.
“We are experimenting with maximum storage of this produce with the aim of doing six months of storage time under controlled temperatures to manage any toxins and moisture content. We also have chemicals and traps to keep rodents at bay,” he says.
Selu also hopes to achieve a full supply of maize all year round when other parts of the country’s supply have gone down. Mr Ambanya holds that it doesn’t make sense to supply at the same time other farmers in the country are equally supplying as that may glut the market and negatively affect product prices.
In February 2019, then-Kilifi governor and current Senate speaker Amason Kingi expressed concerns over the manner in which the ‘collapsed’ Sh7.2 billion Galana Kulalu food security project was implemented.
Mr Kingi, at the time, said the project was a scam and they ‘saw it coming’ right from the beginning after counties that were affected by the project were not involved in the process.
Water Sprinkler machine at Galana Kulalu irrigation farm in Tana River County on January 18, 2024. PHOTO | EVANS HABIL | NMG
“Our biggest take-home from this experiment was that this place bears immense potential. We achieved record yields per acre. We learned about the unique soil types and soil formations and the climatic conditions, and how to work with these to produce such kinds of results,” Mr Ambanya reveals.
The success of the pilot phase now inspires Mr Ambanya to advance into a cumulative of 100,000 acres under production, not just in Galana, but in other parts of Africa.
“Here in Galana Kulalu we’ll do 6,400 acres by the end of 2024, then we’ll move to 21,000 acres by the end of 2026. Now you are aware that the country imports upto1 million metric tonnes of maize annually to substitute the local production. By 2027, this project will reduce the importation by 10 percent,” forecasts Mr Ambanya.
