Launch of Lerroghi Water Tower- Bee keeping and honey processing initiative
Lerroghi also known as Kirisia is a dryland Water Tower found in the Ewaso North catchment area and is located in Samburu County. It covers an area of 91,616.49 ha and traverses different administrative locations including Angata Nanyukie, Baawa, Barsaloi, Kirimon, Kisima, Kisima Samburu, Lbukoi, Lodokejek, Maralal town, Opiroi, Poro and Sirata Oirobi.
The Water Tower is a dry season grazing ground for the pastoralist communities and source of water to the Samburu community living adjacent to it. However, changing livelihoods and exploitation of forest products including the migratory nature of neighbouring communities seeking for water, security and grazing ground has exerted pressure on the Water Tower leading to ecosystem degradation, drying up of rivers and loss of biodiversity which is critical in sustaining the local community’s livelihoods.
Based on these challenges the Agency, in collaboration with the Samburu County Government (SCG) and other stakeholders developed a Community Development Action Plan (CDAP) aimed at mitigating the challenges by providing alternative livelihood solutions to enable sustainable restoration and conservation of the water tower. One of the recommendations was to support Beekeeping and Honey processing as a priority project as one of the alternative livelihood options in the Lerroghi Water Tower.
The agency supported training on modern bee keeping techniques for Beekeepers living within the water tower as well as providing equipment to upscale the capacity of the refining unit. The equipment installed included:
- 8 Refractors
- 435 Beehives
- 5 Manually operated 9/18 centrifuge frames
- 5 Decamping unit tray forks and sieves
- 10000 Plastic bottles (300ml)
- 5000 Plastic bottles (500ml)
- 30,000 Branded stickers (30000)
- Honey Decaping Set
- Honey Strainers
The equipment have been distributed to twenty nine (29) groups operating in five (5) zones.