From Drought to Floods: Climate Extremes Push Northern Kenya Farmers to the Brink

June 06, 2026 - On the banks of the River Tana in Sankuri Ward, Garissa County, Ismail Sanweine stands helplessly at the edge of a flooded farm that was once meant to secure his family's future.

The water stretches across fields where maize and vegetables had been planted only weeks earlier. What should have been a season of hope has become yet another chapter in a long story of loss.

For Ismail, a former pastoralist and now chairman of the Leheley Farmers Group, climate change has delivered a double blow. First came the droughts that killed his livestock. Then came the floods that destroyed the alternative livelihood he had turned to for survival.

His story mirrors the struggle of hundreds of families across Northern Kenya who find themselves trapped between two climate extremes—parching droughts and devastating floods.

"We abandoned our traditional livelihood because of the endless droughts," Ismail says, gazing across the floodwaters.

"I lost more than 70 head of cattle during successive droughts. Together with other community members who suffered similar losses, we settled here at Leheley and started crop farming along the River Tana as an alternative source of income."

For generations, pastoralism was the backbone of life in much of Garissa County. Families measured wealth in livestock, and communities moved with the seasons in search of pasture and water.

But years of recurring drought have changed that reality.

The prolonged dry spells that have gripped northern Kenya over the last decade wiped out thousands of animals, forcing many pastoralists to abandon a way of life passed down through generations.

Along the fertile banks of the River Tana, farming appeared to offer a lifeline.

Families cleared land, purchased seeds and farming tools, and invested their savings in growing crops.

For a brief moment, it seemed they had found a path out of poverty.

Then the floods came.

During the El Niño rains of 2024, rising waters swept through Leheley, destroying crops and carrying away valuable farm equipment.

The losses were devastating, but the farmers refused to give up.

"We started again from scratch," Ismail recalls.

"We prepared the land and planted crops once more, hoping to recover what we had lost."

But before they could harvest, heavy rains in March and April 2025 triggered another round of flooding. Once again, fields were submerged and livelihoods destroyed.

Still, they persevered.

The farmers replanted for a third time.

Now, fresh floods linked to ongoing rains have once again inundated their farms.

"Our farms are submerged and farming infrastructure has been destroyed," Ismail says.

"We cannot even access our fields because everything is under water."

The flooding comes only days after authorities warned communities living along the River Tana that water levels in the Seven Forks hydroelectric dams had risen significantly, necessitating controlled water releases downstream.

For communities living along the river, such announcements often bring fear.

Many know from experience that the rising waters can erase months of hard work in a matter of hours.

Across Garissa and neighbouring Tana River County, thousands of families have been displaced by floods in recent years. Homes have been washed away, roads cut off, schools damaged, and farms destroyed.

For farmers already struggling to recover from drought, each flood pushes them deeper into poverty.

The crisis facing Leheley farmers is not unique.

Last week, members of the Garissa Farmers Network (GFN), a cooperative bringing together about 1,700 farmers, began the process of petitioning the County Assembly over recurrent flooding that they say is crippling agricultural production across the county.

Led by Chairman Abdullahi Abdi and Secretary Amina Issa, the delegation met County Assembly Speaker Abdi Idle Gure to seek guidance on submitting a formal petition.

The farmers described a growing crisis marked by repeated crop losses, damaged irrigation systems, displacement of farming communities, and mounting economic hardship.

Beyond floods, they highlighted a host of challenges facing the agricultural sector, including inadequate extension services, poor access to machinery, lack of organised markets, limited financing opportunities, and poor rural roads.

For many farmers, climate change has exposed deeper vulnerabilities that make recovery increasingly difficult.

Yet amid the hardships, stories of resilience continue to emerge.

Community groups have pooled resources to replant crops after disasters. Neighbours help one another rebuild damaged farms. Non-governmental organisations have stepped in with seeds, farming tools, and technical support to help affected families restart their livelihoods.

But many fear that resilience alone may no longer be enough.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events across the Horn of Africa. Northern Kenya, already one of the country's most climate-vulnerable regions, is increasingly experiencing prolonged droughts followed by intense rainfall and flooding.

For communities like Leheley, this means living in a constant cycle of recovery and loss.

As the floodwaters continue to cover his fields, Ismail wonders how many more times his community will have to start over.

They escaped drought hoping farming would offer a future.

Instead, they found themselves battling another climate disaster.

"We have not given up," he says quietly.

"But every time we rebuild, another flood comes and takes everything away."

His words capture the reality facing thousands of families across Northern Kenya—a people caught between dust and deluge, struggling to hold onto hope as climate change steadily reshapes their lives.

While recurrent floods continue to devastate farming communities along the River Tana, humanitarian organizations have been working to help families adapt to a changing climate.

Among them is Save the Children,which has been supporting drought-affected pastoralists in Garissa County to transition into crop farming as an alternative livelihood.

The organization recently highlighted the story of Ardo Abdi a resident of Jarajara Ward, whose life mirrors the struggles experienced by many families across northern Kenya.

For years, Ardo and her family depended entirely on livestock for food and income. But the devastating drought of 2024 decimated her herd, leaving the family on the brink of starvation.

“Drought has always hit us very hard,"Ardo recalled.

*"When the drought came in 2024, most of my cows died. I was left with only five, but they were very weak. They were not producing milk and I could not sell them. Life became very difficult.”

As the drought intensified, food became scarce and her children began showing signs of severe malnutrition.

“All my children became weak because we did not have enough food,"she said. “I thought, just like I lost my cows, I would also lose my children because of hunger."

Despite having access to water from a nearby canal, farming had never been part of the community's way of life. Families lacked the knowledge, tools and confidence needed to cultivate crops.

Save the Children stepped in with integrated nutrition and livelihood support programmes targeting vulnerable households.

Through community outreach initiatives, health workers screened children for malnutrition and enrolled those affected into treatment programmes. Ardo's children — Zakaria, Ayan and Ibrahim — were diagnosed with Severe Acute Malnutrition and immediately placed on therapeutic feeding programmes.

“When I first assessed the children, they were visibly weak, and their measurements confirmed how serious their condition was,"* said Katra, a Nutrition Officer with Save the Children.

“Through the programme, the children received treatment alongside nutrition counselling for the caregivers. Over time, we saw a strong recovery. The children gained weight, their health improved significantly, and today they are healthy and active again."

Alongside nutrition support, the organization introduced climate-smart agriculture through Farmer Field School programmes. Families received training, certified seeds, fertilizers and farming tools to help them establish new sources of income and food production.

For Ardo, learning how to farm offered a pathway out of dependence on livestock and a chance to rebuild her family's future.

Her story reflects a growing trend across northern Kenya, where pastoralist communities are increasingly diversifying their livelihoods as climate shocks become more frequent and severe.

Yet for farmers like Ismail Sanweine and members of the Leheley Farmers Group, the transition has not been easy. Having escaped devastating droughts by embracing farming, they now find themselves battling recurrent floods that threaten to destroy the very livelihoods they worked so hard to rebuild.

The contrast highlights the difficult reality facing communities in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands: even as they adapt to one climate disaster, another often follows close behind.