- Uasin Gishu validates priority areas for climate-resilient agriculture
- InReMP targets farmers through land restoration and stronger rural livelihoods
- Programme prepares to map degraded landscapes and identify beneficiaries
Farmers in Uasin Gishu are set to gain from InReMP, a programme targeting climate-resilient land, forest cover and stronger rural livelihoods across the county.
Stakeholders meeting in Eldoret have validated the priority Focal Development Areas (FDAs) under the Integrated Natural Resources Management Programme (InReMP), clearing the way for investment to flow towards the landscapes and households that need it most.
Dr. Sam Kotut, the County Executive for Agriculture, Agribusiness, Livestock and Fisheries, led the exercise. He said the process was important in ensuring that InReMP interventions are properly targeted and aligned with the needs and priorities of communities.
Across its implementation period, InReMP targets 169,600 hectares of climate-resilient land and 33,200 hectares under forest cover. It also aims to have 305,382 households, or 75 per cent of its overall target, adopting climate-resilient technologies and practices by completion.
Those figures translate into practical work. Specifically, the programme will protect water resources, improve catchment management, strengthen agricultural livelihoods and build community resilience to climate-related shocks.
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Focal Development Areas serve as the programme’s targeting tool. Rather than spreading resources thinly, InReMP concentrates investment in defined landscapes where degradation, water stress and livelihood pressures overlap.
Validation, therefore, is no formality. It is the point at which county technical officers, community representatives and programme staff agree on where money goes first. Consequently, the Eldoret exercise shapes which sub-county landscapes see early activity.
InReMP is valued at Ksh 34.1 billion and will run for eight years. Funding comes jointly from the Government of Kenya and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Altogether it targets 407,176 households across 10 counties in western Kenya, reaching more than two million people.
Uasin Gishu sits at the centre of that architecture. The programme was launched at the University of Eldoret’s Chepkoilel Campus on July 17, 2026, under the theme “Building Resilient Communities.” Moreover, the national coordination office is based in Eldoret.
Land degradation remains the core challenge. Agriculture Principal Secretary Dr. Kiprono Ronoh has said the programme responds to degraded land, falling soil fertility, unreliable rainfall, water stress and weak market access, pressures he said demand integrated rather than piecemeal solutions.
For a county anchoring much of Kenya’s maize and dairy production, those pressures carry national weight. Thinning soils and shrinking catchments do not stay local. They surface in national food supply and in incomes far beyond the county boundary.
InReMP runs on three components, covering community-led natural resources management, rural livelihoods, and institutional strengthening and coordination. In practice, restoration of forests, wetlands and rangelands sits alongside support for climate-smart value chains such as dairy, poultry, beekeeping and horticulture.
With focal areas now validated, attention shifts to identifying beneficiaries and mapping degraded landscapes for restoration. Other counties have started that groundwork. Kakamega, for instance, has been allocated Ksh 81 million this financial year for the same purpose.
For farmers here, the test will be delivery. The targets are ambitious, yet hosting the national coordination office gives Uasin Gishu a proximity advantage few of the other nine counties enjoy
By Benedict Aoya
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