The Pain of Change: Challenges Associated with Mechanizing Rice Production and Harvesting Systems in the Mwea Irrigation Scheme within the Kirinyaga District, Central Province, Kenya.

Rice production in Kenya desperately needs to be mechanized in order to meet expectations of production both nationally and globally. Currently, Kenya produces less than one-third of the rice consumed by the Kenyan population. Therefore, the other two-thirds of the rice is imported from other countries every year through international trade or from foreign food-aid assistance. Rice has gained popularity in recent years, especially within the urban areas of the country, and the annual consumption is currently increasing at a rate of 12% a year. Currently, the Mwea Irrigation Scheme within the Kirinyaga District in the Central Province produces approximately 80% of the rice produced in Kenya. The major costs in the current rice production system is manual labor used for preparing the field (tillage, leveling), planting (transplant seeding), harvesting (hand-harvest cutting, thrashing), drying (distributing rice grain on the ground for solar-powered drying), and packaging following milling. Issues that have prevented mechanization from coming to this area and similar areas in the past include the lack of finances to purchase and invest into machinery, local societal fear of losing jobs, the lack of skilled mechanical personnel to maintain the equipment properly, the fear of changing traditional proven production methods to adopt new and unfamiliar production practices, and reliance of individual private farmers on the local farmer cooperative or other private services providing machine access. These problems and fears must be addressed and resolved in order to ensure a successfully transition to mechanized rice production. Although society as a whole has a tendency to resist change, the current rice production situation is not enough to maintain national needs and support financial independence in the country. Therefore, the current system is not sustainable in the long-term outlook of the national and societal needs.