MARSABI, KENYA The highway to the north goes around the green slopes of Mount Kenya, the view is like paradise. But when we start to descend to the northern plain, the temperature rises above 30 degrees and the landscape changes.
There is still some green here and there after the rains in January, but the riverbeds have already dried up.
– After three years of drought, the soil was so hard that it could not absorb the autumn rains. The water flowed in floods to the riverbeds and along them to the sea, explains the water engineer of the Christian organization Water for the World Victor Siambi.
We drive a couple of hundred kilometers through the yellow dry plain Log-Logon to the village. It’s hard to believe that it ever rained here.
We get out of the car and feel the ground under our feet. It is hard, stony and sandy, completely dry. And yet there is water nearby.
– Yes, we walk on water, says Victor Siambi with a smile.
Marsabit county is one of the driest regions in Kenya. But even here, groundwater can be found almost everywhere. If not from a depth of 25 meters, then from fifty or a hundred meters.
Huge untapped groundwater resources
Africa’s groundwater resources have been called the “sleeping giant”. There is no reliable data, but according to the most common estimates, only less than ten percent of the continent’s renewable groundwater resources have been used.
A South African hydrogeologist who studied sub-Saharan Africa’s groundwater resources Jude Cobbing believes that by exploiting the groundwater in dry areas, Africa’s development can be catalyzed to unprecedented growth.
– This has happened in India, this has happened in China. There is no reason to assume that the same cannot be done in African countries, says Cobbing in a video interview with .
A miniature version of that big change can be seen in the village of Log-Logo.
The pastor first built the well, then the church
Pastor Elias Kithinji moved from the slopes of Mount Meru to Log-Logo ten years ago, with the intention of spreading the word of God.
– When I first came to the village, a little girl offered me a mug of water to drink. It was brown, really dirty. I had to be polite and drink, but at that moment I realized how great the need is for clean water here, Kithinji recalls.
The pastor did not dare to ask future parishioners for help in building the church until the water issue was taken care of.
There was no money to drill a well and build water tanks. But the problem was solved when the Finnish missionary Pekka Ylenius through a couple from Pirkanmaa who wanted to help.
They heard Pastor Kithinji’s plans and decided to pay the cost of building the well, about 20,000 euros.
The well and water system were completed in 2015. Now Elias Kithinji stands proudly on a modest concrete deck. The water meter ticks. The solar cells provide electricity to the pump, which overcomes gravity and moves the water through pipes to seven large water tanks.
The water rises from a depth of about 130 meters. For almost ten years, the well has provided water almost without interruption, about four cubic meters per hour, 40 cubic meters per day.
The borehole did not run out even during the exceptional drought period of 2021–23.
– The water became a little harder, saltier. But it was still usable all the time, Pastor Kithinji says.
The church well in Log-Logo provides water for about 2,600 people, domestic animals, school, church and small garden crops.
Crops can be multiplied with artificial irrigation
According to researchers, agricultural growth is clearly the most effective way to eliminate poverty in Africa south of the Sahel.
It is estimated that artificially irrigated fields produce up to 50 percent better crops than crops that depend only on rain.
– Only about three percent of Africa’s cultivated land is artificially irrigated, so the potential for increasing food production is huge, says researcher Jude Cobbing.
Water engineer Victor Siambi is shaking the surface of the earth again. According to him, under the hard shell is a layer of red, fertile food soil several meters thick. You can farm in the village of Log-Logo if only water is available.
Pastor Kithinji has built a small shadow room. Gauze fabrics hung over the metal frame let the winds of the plain pass through, but protect from the most scorching sunlight.
– You have greenhouses in the north that collect heat. We need shade and cooling so that the sun doesn’t burn the plants, Elias Kithinji explains.
Water is pumped from the church’s well into plastic 10,000 liter water tanks. From them, it seeps through plastic pipes to moisten the soil of the shade room.
This creates a garden that is like an oasis in the middle of the desert.
The shadow room garden is tended by a group of women from nomadic families. They handle the vines and tomato stalks gently, sometimes singing.
– We have learned to grow tomatoes, lettuce and moringa trees. Our children get better food and we have already received income from vegetables. With the money, we pay the children’s school fees and buy medicines and fertilizers, the spokeswoman of the group Elizabeth Kasula tells.
In the small garden, a lifestyle change is taking place before our eyes, perhaps a historically large one.
Will nomadism come to an end?
Due to climate change, the already harsh climate conditions in East Africa have become even more unpredictable.
has previously reported on the effects of a drought lasting more than three years on the lives of nomads in Kenya and Somalia.
Nomadic families have never cultivated the land before, never even kept small gardens. The mobile way of life and the cultivations have never been compatible.
But after many years of drought, we are in a situation where the men of the families are no longer walking the savannahs with smaller herds of animals. Women and children stay by the sides of villages and roads, waiting for help from the state or aid organizations.
Or, like in the village of Log-Logo, to learn new ways of making a living.
“Africa has a huge potential to produce food”
Hydrogeologist Jude Cobbing believes that Africa is facing a development similar to what has happened in India over the past 50 years.
Africa’s population is growing at a tremendous rate, and according to Cobbing, the only way to produce enough food is to use the continent’s groundwater resources and large-scale artificial irrigation.
– In India, cheap pumps and cheap electrical energy sold to dry areas created a groundwater boom, which greatly developed agriculture and supposedly saved India from a massive famine, Cobbing estimates.
According to Jude Cobbing, the use of groundwater and agriculture based on artificial irrigation are the only means by which Africa can feed its rapidly growing population in the coming decades.
Lack of water is actually not the biggest factor limiting food production. There is plenty of unused groundwater, but it cannot be used on a large scale until many other limiting factors are solved.
– Farmers need loans to drill wells, reasonably priced pumps and spare parts for them, roads along which crops can be transported. If such factors are in order, water will be found, says Jude Cobbing.
Africa’s groundwater is a sleeping giant that could allow the continent to take a huge leap in development. But that doesn’t mean the resource is unlimited.
Cobbing again refers to the example of India: there, groundwater resources have also been destroyed when water has been pumped beyond the renewable capacity of the underground water reservoirs. The same danger also exists in Africa.
– But an even greater danger and environmental risk is people’s poverty and hunger. The international discussion pays too much attention to the risks of using groundwater and too little to its benefits, says Jude Cobbing.
– Africa has a huge potential to produce food not only for itself, but also surplus for export.