Lawyer transforms his dry Kitui village to a land of plenty

Lawyer William Maema on his farm on Saturday /MUSEMBI NZENGU

Lawyer William Maema, is a man on a mission to transform his dry and sunbaked Tanganyika village in Kitui Rural into a Canaan.

With a strong belief that the narrative of Kitui county can change from a famine-stricken area in need of food aid to a land of plenty, the lawyer has rolled up his sleeves to make it happen.

“We are trying to demonstrate that our biggest challenges of scorching heat and dry sand beds in Kitui, can, if well utilised, become our greatest resource,” Maema said as he took his high school classmates on a tour of his lash green farm nestled Kwa-vonza ward.

The senior partner at the IKM Advocates in Nairobi, took his classmates on a tour of his farm which is a contrast of the neighbouring ones which are dry.

“At Wamue Social Enterprise Farm, we believe that agriculture can be a powerful tool for social and economic transformation of lives,” he said.

Maema grows chilies, french beans, pixie oranges, mangoes, pawpaw for export.

“We use modern ecologically-sustainable agricultural techniques including drawing water from a sump-well built in a dry sand bed in the nearby seasonal Tiva River. We pump water using solar power, drip irrigation and fertigation systems,” he said as he explained how he had managed the enviable feat.

“Currently, we are harvesting two tonnes of green chilies and one tonne of french beans every week for the export market. Our produce is probably the first to grace the shelves of European supermarkets from Kitui Rural constituency,” he added.