For at least five decades, irrigation development has been approached as the solution to recurrent drought in Turkana. In the early 1960s, developers established modern small-scale irrigation schemes along the lower Turkwel River basin. The schemes were meant to improve food security, to provide alternative livelihood opportunities to locals decimated by drought and raids, and to modernize a society deemed “backward” and violent. One example is the Turkwel irrigation scheme initiated by the Government of Kenya and FAO in 1966.This case study looks at what happened to the Amasikin Turkana (poor or stockless), inhabitants of the Ng’monia territorial section (people of the riparian forests) after they became settled on the Turkwel irrigation scheme. It demonstrates that the outcomes of the irrigation scheme were far from what was expected: only a few benefited, and where they benefited it was from their own efforts, not from the initiatives of the development organizations. The irrigation scheme activities of the past were characterized by delay, waste of resources, lack of engagement with the local communities, including environmental degradation. Yet, the same approaches to irrigation appear to continue today.