Selu Africa Limited, one of the companies investing in the Galala-Kulalu Food Security Project, plans to inject over 880 million US Dollars (about Sh117 billion) into the project over a period of ten years.
The firm, which is at the final stages of acquiring a lease and other government authorizations to start full operations, will put in an initial 80 million US Dollars (about Sh10.6 billion) to open up 20,000 acres of land for irrigation over a three-year period, according the Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Ambanya.
“We look forward to injecting 80 million US Dollars in the first three years of this project that will see us put up an investment covering 20,000 acres of land. From there, we will put another approximately 800 million US Dollars in a period of seven years, which added to the three years will be a total of ten years, to commercialize a whole 200,000 acres,” the CEO said.
Speaking to journalists after the firm’s senior officials conducted potential partners on a tour of the infrastructure, Ambanya said the company had reached a stage in which it was finalizing on the acquisition agreement and was about to start farming.
What we were doing today was that we were bringing in some of our potential in terms of investment for them to appreciate the infrastructure the government has put in place, the work we have been doing all along, in major sectors such as the bridge, the dam and others so as to go together with us as we come to what we have been waiting for, the start of the project, he added.
The company and its partners have put in place a dam within part of the 1.7 million Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC) farm situated in Tana River and Kilifi Counties and intends to use already laid down infrastructure by the government and other development partners.
It is also constructing a bridge across the Galana River within the Tsavo East National Park that will be used to transport the massive harvest expected from the farm once production fully commences.
The investment we are putting up is mainly irrigation infrastructure plus the rest of support infrastructure like equipment, machinery, roads, housing, he added.
Asked how the company expects to succeed where other companies such as Green Arava failed, Ambaya explained that the main reason the government contracted the Israeli firm was not for government to farm, but to develop an infrastructure, test to confirm that it is working and then hand over as a model farm to the private sector.
Among the infrastructure to be put in place through the Korean Solar Power Consortium is a solar plant intended to supplement grid power, with diesel being used as a standby source of power. This is intended to lower the cost of doing business within the farm, said Ambanya.
“We will have three sources of power in this project: solar, grid and diesel or fossil energy. We prioritize solar because we want to go green and also lower the cost of energy. This will be backed up by the grid while diesel will be standby,” he said.
He said the primary crop to be grown within the farm will be maize, but noted that the company would also develop other value chains that would be grown alongside the maize.
By Emmanuel Masha
