Samuel Odiawo is steadily turning to be one of successful farmers in Homa Bay county despite his humble beginnings. To Odiawo, the Kimira-Oluch Irrigation project in the county came in good time.

At the time, locals at Konyango Nyatoto village in Karachuonyo sub-county were reluctant to embrace irrigation farming, but Odiawo did. Not discouraged by the jeers from the community members, the businessman took advantage of the project and ventured into serious farming.

“I saw a golden opportunity and decided to go for it,” he says. Kimira-Oluch is a project implemented by national government, Ministry of Regional Development Authorities and the African Development Bank (ADB) in Karachuonyo and Homa bay town sub-counties in March 2007.

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The project is estimated to improve the livelihood of about 5,300 households upon completion. Determined to reap from farming, the farmer says he waded through the project’s major canal and tapped the water via a hosepipe to reach his farm.

“I didn’t wait but tapped the water a few miles away and ensured that it reached my farm for the work to start,” he says. Odiawo says he was motivated by the fact that he had seen how such irrigation projects transformed lives of farmers elsewhere in the country.

“I quickly borrowed the idea and with my four-acre farm, started off the farming enterprise.” To date, he earns Sh100,000 on average every planting season.

At first in 2013, the farmer says he grew hybrid onions on one-and-half acre farm that fetched him Sh90,000 in three months. With Sh20,000 as a seed capital, Odiawo says he went into the business with the ultimate goal of scaling up the gains.

“I later shifted to growing tomatoes one year later,” says the farmer. The tomatoes earned him on average Sh70,000 each three-month season, adding that hybrid Kal J variety was his best choice due to its high productivity and ability to resist disease infections.

Odiawo, 40, has since diversified into tissue culture banana production where he takes home on average Sh 20,000 every month.

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The farmer says he started growing bananas with 100 tissue culture banana seedlings costing Sh120 each on March 2014.

“I settled for bananas since it is easy to manage and its production is continuous.

I get Sh800 from each batch of mature banana crop which is lucrative,” says the farmer. His first harvest of the crop was in August 2015.

The farmer says he has learnt that the tissue culture banana performs much better and takes a shorter time to mature compared to traditional varieties. Currently, his banana plants have multiplied, taking the number to 400 mature plants.

To add to his income, Odiawo also keeps indigenous chicken in his farm. He says he decided to try his hand in poultry keeping with less than 200 birds late last year, adding that at the moment he has a stock of 500 rainbow rooster layers.

“Poultry keeping is equally economically viable; in a day I get about Sh1,800 from the sale of eggs,” says Odiawo. Going by the high demand of eggs in the market, the farmer says he plans to expand poultry production. This means that on a good month, Odiawo is able to make Sh. 50,000 from his chicken farming venture.

“The demand for eggs in the local market is overwhelming, and business is booming,” he adds. He now has a real testimony that farming is a reliable and a quick way of making money. “There is no doubt at all farming is a smart way of creating wealth and have tasted the gains,” he says.

He, however, says his glorious moments are not without challenges, citing among others pests and diseases attacking tomatoes and onions and harsh weather conditions.

Odiawo, who also doubles up as a businessman, says farming has transformed his life. “I’ve succeeded through farming because now I am able to support my family and sort out other basic needs easily. I live a balanced life and will never go without a penny in my pocket,” says Odiawo.

The farmer underscores a bright future in farming, saying he also plans to up-scale banana production in anticipation of more income.

“I have gained the momentum in farming and hence envision the future to be bright. I look forward to enlarging my production to meet a wider market,” says the farmer.

Agricultural trainings through Kimira-Oluch have added to his farming skills. He says he wants to be a leading example to the ‘doubting Thomases’ that farming can be a golden opportunity in the area.