The Kapbrar Farm in Chembulet

By Dominic Ng'etich

The Kapbrar farm in Chembulet, is a vast land located about 35Kms from Eldoret town along Eldoret-Iten Road. 

 The sprawling 2000 acres land was once inhabited by a white settler named Britham Brar Singh, of Indian origin. He acquired the land in the late 1960s from a Boer farmer who was leaving the country for South Africa after Kenya gained independence. 

Brar Singh was a wheat farmer. 

In the early 1990s, during the Moi regime, the late powerful Energy and Lands Minister Nicholas Kipyator Biwott acquired the the land and gave it to the Keiyo community, mostly women's groups. 

Chiefs from Kaptarakwa, Chebior, Kitany, Kapkoi, Mutei, and Irong asked locals to send their daughters, wives, mothers, and any female who was willing to pay 5000 to own an acre of land. 

The northern side of the land was given to the people from Irong, the eastern side to Mutei and Kaptarakwa, and parts of the southern and lower western sides were given to people from Chebior and Kitany. 

Biwott, being one of them, increased security on his farm, which led to the name Kapbrar or Kapsingh.