Residents decry losses after hippos damage their farms

Farmers along the shores of Lake Vitoria in Homa Bay County are counting huge losses due to an invasion of their crops by hippopotamuses.

The farmers who grow maize, cotton and horticultural crops such as sukuma wiki, cabbage, tomatoes and onions are counting losses over destruction of their crops.

At Angalo village in Homa Bay Sub-county, several farmers are decrying losses after the hippos invaded their farms.

The hippos destroyed the maize which they started growing using irrigation prior to the onset of the ongoing rains in the area.

Dorcas Odoyo said the hippos had damaged her farms several times.

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Odoyo said her family spent over Sh30,000 to plant various crops in the farm. But she is not expecting any harvest after the hippos ate the crops.

“It cost us more than Sh30,000 to prepare the land and plant the crops in this farm. But, unfortunately, they have been destroyed by the hippos,” said Odoyo.

Samuel Nyambok, another farmer, said the hippos had denied them food security. He expressed worry that famine would inflict, yet they put the necessary strategies for eradicating it.

“Our crops were very healthy and we expected good harvests. But what has happened has rendered us hopeless of getting any harvests. We are now staring at famine instead of getting food,” said Nyambok.

He said the situation is also discouraging residents from participating in crop production effectively yet agriculture is the primary source of food.

They said their efforts to guard their farms had failed due to the aggressiveness of the hippos.

Elvis Munga said some of the hippos attempt to attack them when they try to chase them from their farms.

“We guard our farms, but some of the hippos cannot be scared  by a human being.  They attempt to attack us, forcing us to escape when they are destroying our crops,” said Munga.

The farmers called on the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to intervene and cushion them from the destruction.

“We appeal to the KWS to intervene and control these hippos. They are also putting our lives at risk because they can kill us,” said Munga.

Homa Bay KWS Warden Jackson Kibor said they were working on modalities of addressing the matter after getting complaints from Angalo.

“We have received information about the matter, and we are putting restraint measures in place. Let the residents also avoid undertaking farming in riparian land because this escalates human-wildlife conflict,” said Kibor.