When President William Ruto took office four years ago, he placed irrigation and water storage at the centre of his food security agenda, promising to reduce Kenya’s heavy dependence on increasingly unreliable rainfall.
Since then, the government has invested billions of shillings in dams, irrigation schemes, water pans and canals, expanding agricultural production in areas where farmers previously depended almost entirely on the rains.
The gains are being recorded in both established irrigation schemes and new projects across the country.
Official government data indicates that an additional 80,340 acres had been placed under irrigation by December 2024, raising the total irrigated area from about 664,000 acres in 2022 to 744,340 acres.
At the launch of his administration’s water and irrigation agenda in 2023, Ruto described irrigation as a key driver of agricultural transformation.
“Irrigation is the most transformational intervention we can undertake in agriculture.”
Water Cabinet Secretary Eric Mugaa has similarly argued that changing weather patterns have made reliance on rainfall increasingly difficult.
“Rain-fed agriculture has become unreliable due to climate change, and one way to address these shortcomings is by investing in rainwater harvesting, a reliable and sustainable water supply,” he said during a past event.
But four years into the administration, the effectiveness of the irrigation drive cannot be measured by announced acreage alone.
The key question is how much of the additional land has reliable water and is actually being cultivated.
The government is targeting an increase in irrigated land to 1,289,142 acres by 2027-28. The National Irrigation Authority (NIA) says its expanded irrigation programme has already put 228,731 acres under irrigation across 44 counties.
Of that total, 147,131 acres are attributed to smallholder and community irrigation projects, while 80,600 acres have been delivered through rehabilitation and expansion of gazetted schemes.
A further 88 ongoing projects are expected to add another 67,225 acres when completed.
However, the NIA figure is cumulative and covers a programme that began in 2011. It therefore cannot be attributed entirely to Ruto’s four years in office.
A more direct measure of the administration’s progress comes from government sector reports.
Between the 2021-22 and 2023-24 financial years, the Environment, Water and Natural Resources sector reported development of an additional 91,499 acres for rice, maize and horticulture.
The expansion of the Mwea Irrigation Scheme to 30,600 acres, together with the Thiba Dam project, contributed to increased rice production and made double cropping more consistent.
Mwea offers clearest evidence of irrigation gains
Mwea has emerged as one of the strongest examples of what reliable irrigation water can do for agricultural production.
Completion of Thiba Dam increased the irrigated area in the scheme from 25,000 acres to about 30,600 acres, with the government targeting an expansion to 35,000 acres in a season.
The NIA estimates that the expanded scheme could support double cropping, translating into as much as 70,000 irrigated acres in a year.
Rice production is projected to rise from about 114,000 tonnes to 200,000 tonnes annually, while the value of production could increase from Sh10 billion to Sh18 billion.
The figures underline why the irrigation programme needs to be judged not just by acreage but also by productivity.
Government data shows rice production increased from 192,299 tonnes in 2022 to 303,724 tonnes in 2025, while public irrigation scheme acreage rose from 48,324 acres to 71,624 acres over the same period.
The increased availability of reliable water has also generated wider economic benefits in Mwea.
Mwea Irrigation Scheme Chairman Peter Chege said the project is critical to food security locally and nationally.
“Kenya is currently facing a rice deficit of about 700,000 metric tonnes, forcing the government to rely on imports to meet demand. This expansion will help reduce that gap,” Chege said.
The NIA says the value of rice produced at Mwea has increased from Sh10 billion to Sh14 billion annually following completion of Thiba Dam, while the project has created an additional 28,000 jobs.
The longer-term plan is for the scheme to reach 35,000 acres in a season and support double cropping.
Expansion spreads across the country
While Mwea has recorded some of the most visible gains, irrigation expansion has also been taking place in other parts of the country.
During the 2024-25 financial year, the State Department for Irrigation reported an additional 3,150 acres through expansion of existing schemes.
The additions included 2,000 acres in Bura, 450 acres in Tana, 200 acres in Bunyala and 500 acres in Ahero.
Large-scale irrigation projects accounted for another 11,050 acres, including 2,200 acres in Lower Kuja, 3,000 acres in Lower Nzoia, 5,000 acres in Galana and 850 acres in Turkana.
The Farmer-Led Irrigation Development initiative added another 100 acres.
Combined, the interventions represented more than 14,000 acres of reported additions during the 2024-25 financial year, although government programmes do not all use identical reporting periods or definitions of “developed” and “under irrigation”.
The administration has also sought to take irrigation to regions that have historically been considered unsuitable for large-scale crop production.
In November 2025, Ruto announced plans to use 50 mega dams to support irrigation of 1.5 million acres in northern and coastal Kenya.
He said 1.5 million of the government’s planned 2.5 million additional irrigated acres would come from the two regions.
“In our plan for placing 2.5 million acres of land under irrigation, 1.5 million of those will be from Northern Kenya and the Coast regions,” he said.
High Grand Falls at centre of northern, coastal plan
The proposed High Grand Falls Dam is central to the government’s strategy.
Ruto said the proposed dam on the Tana River could irrigate between 300,000 and 400,000 acres, potentially transforming parts of eastern and northern Kenya into major food-producing areas.
“It is time to expand from that 15 per cent of Kenya that has rainfall to the rest of the 85 per cent that has no rainfall by storing water for irrigation,” he said.
The statement captures the administration’s broader approach: Kenya has significant agricultural land, but large parts of the country lack dependable water.
However, some of the largest projects expected to unlock hundreds of thousands of acres remain incomplete.
Galana-Kulalu revived
Galana-Kulalu is another major component of Ruto’s food production and irrigation strategy.
After taking office in 2022, Ruto ordered the revival of the project, directing that the already developed 10,000 acres be put into production as plans were made for a much larger expansion.
The NIA’s long-term plan includes construction of the Galana Dam to support irrigation of up to 300,000 acres.
During an inspection of the project in May 2025, Ruto said the government needed to move beyond years of promises.
“For a long time, there has been a lot of talk about this project. It has been enough talk; now the work begins,” Ruto said.
He said Galana-Kulalu was intended to produce food, create employment and generate products for export.
“We want to use this project to grow food, create jobs as well as ensure we have products for export,” he said.
The government has since adopted a private-sector model for the wider 250,000-acre expansion.
Under the arrangement, Selu Limited has been allocated 20,000 acres, Nyumbani Foundation 50,000 acres and UAE-based Al Dahra 180,000 acres.
Thwake Dam faces delays
Thwake Multipurpose Dam, straddling Kitui and Makueni counties, is another major project in the irrigation strategy.
The dam has a storage capacity of 688 million cubic metres and is ultimately expected to support irrigation of about 100,000 acres.
But its development has been affected by prolonged delays.
An Auditor General’s report in March 2026 raised concerns over stalled works, cost escalations and financial losses, while noting that the project had reached 94.2 per cent completion by the end of 2024.
By September 2026, construction had resumed after almost two years without significant activity following the securing of Sh10.6 billion from the African Development Bank.
The government expects the critical works to be completed within eight months, with filling of the dam targeted for January 2027.
The delays have implications for irrigation because the full agricultural benefits cannot be realised until the wider water-storage infrastructure is operational.
Mwache irrigation still being developed
The same challenge is evident at Mwache Dam on the Coast.
When Ruto launched the project in 2023, he said it would provide water to irrigate at least 7,000 acres and generate Sh1.3 billion worth of food annually.
“If we produce more food, it means more earnings for our farmers and more jobs for our youth,” he said.
However, the irrigation component is still under development.
In 2026, the government was undertaking a feasibility study for a 2,000-hectare irrigation scheme around the Mwache Dam area, equivalent to roughly 4,942 acres.
The situation illustrates the difference between a dam’s projected irrigation potential and land that is actually equipped with irrigation infrastructure, supplied with water and being cultivated by farmers.
Smaller water projects offer immediate gains
Alongside the mega-dams, the government has continued investing in smaller water-storage infrastructure.
During the 2025-26 financial year, the National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority said it completed 76 water projects comprising weirs, small earth dams, boreholes and related water-supply systems.
The projects harvested and stored about 1.196 million cubic metres of water, benefiting more than 115,000 people and supporting irrigation on more than 12,000 acres.
The authority also reported rehabilitation of small dams, water pans, boreholes and weirs, restoring about 300 million litres of storage capacity.
Such smaller interventions could prove particularly important because farmers can begin production without waiting for major infrastructure projects that can take years to complete.
Financing remains a major hurdle
The government’s National Irrigation Sector Investment Plan seeks to increase irrigated land from 664,000 acres in 2021/22 to 1,289,142 acres by 2027/28.
It also targets a sharp increase in water available for irrigation, from 55.4 million cubic metres to 2,379.2 million cubic metres over the same period.
But funding constraints continue to threaten implementation.
In 2025, the Ministry of Water warned Parliament that budget cuts could delay major irrigation projects.
Bura faced a potential Sh250 million cut that could affect its planned 18,500-acre expansion, while Mwea faced a Sh200 million reduction that could put an additional 5,000 acres at risk.
The National Expanded Irrigation Programme also suffered an Sh850 million reduction.
Four-year scorecard
The record so far presents a mixed but measurable picture.
The government has demonstrated that targeted irrigation investment can transform agricultural production, with Mwea and the growth in rice production providing some of the clearest evidence.
It has also expanded irrigation infrastructure in communities, rehabilitated existing schemes and developed a pipeline of dams and irrigation projects capable of opening up large areas to agriculture.
At the same time, some of the administration’s biggest irrigation promises remain works in progress.
Ruto initially pledged to build 100 large dams and 1,000 smaller dams while dramatically increasing the amount of land under irrigation.
The administration later shifted towards a target of 2.5 million additional irrigated acres, including 1.5 million acres in northern and coastal Kenya.
The President summed up the ambition in his 2025 State of the Nation Address:
“With dams, we can transform our arid and semi-arid areas into hubs of agricultural production, even in the absence of rainfall,” Ruto said.
The challenge for the remaining years of the programme will therefore be turning projected irrigation capacity into functioning schemes, reliable water supplies and productive farms.
For the administration, the ultimate test will not be the number of dams announced or acres promised, but whether farmers in dry and rain-dependent regions can consistently produce more food, earn more income and reduce Kenya’s reliance on agricultural imports.
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