Kapkaro/Emsilies

 The locals in the area call it Kapkaro, which means the home of Karo in the local Kalenjin language. The farm was also called Kazi Mingi. There was even a signpost in the 1980s at Tugen Estate trading center pointing towards Karo farm that read “Kazi Mingi”. And the nearby school is called Emsilies. But what is the origin of these names?

This farm, spanning nearly 3000 acres in Sergoit ward in Moiben, was once owned by a Boer farmer named Karole Emsilie. Emsilies was a prolific farmer who took up farming in these area during the colonial period. When Emsilie left Kenya in the 1970s for South Africa, the farm was leased out to a group of Indian farmers. In the late 1970s, Hon Nicholas Biwot, a powerful minister in the Moi government, took over the management of the farm. He employed hundreds of workers and an Indian manager named Mutubai to run the farm, with his son Mr. Nassir.

Hon Biwot continued the farm’s legacy of intensive farming, growing wheat and barley and also practicing dairy farming. The farm housed high pedigree cows, providing employment to hundreds of workers.

In the 1990s, farming in Uasin Gishu began to decline, leading to the unprofitability of Kazi Mingi farm. Hon. Biwot started giving away parts of the farm as a reward to his long-serving workers. Eventually, 2-5 acres of land were given out at Kapsaos and in Kitale. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the land was subdivided and sold to smallholders.

Emsilies Primary School, which was established in the 1960s was also relocated within the farm during this time. Today, Karol Emsilie legacy lives on through both of his names and farming prowess.

Some of the notable figures that once lived on this farm include Hon. Francis Tarar, the former MP for Eldoret East, and John Kimeli, renowned former Prison Staff choir leader.