The Tana River in Kenya. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Israeli expertise in irrigation is aiding Kenyan farmers as they deal with the severe ongoing drought that has been gripping the east African nation, the Jewish state’s outgoing envoy to Nairobi said in an interview with The Star published on Friday.

According to The Star, Ambassador Yahel Vilan said the Galana-Kulalu irrigation project on the Tana River — which is operated by an Israeli company — was helping “transform Kenyan agriculture.”

Referring to the history of Israeli agricultural ventures, Vilan told The Star, “We knew from the beginning that we didn’t have choices. We wanted to strive, first and foremost for our own consumption. We needed to base our agriculture on technology.”

“We had scarcity of water and we had to find solutions, which we did through drip irrigation and use of treated water,” he continued. “Israel is currently number one in usage of treated water for agriculture.”