Aquaculture
University of Eldoret entered into a mutual agreement with the Teso South Fish Farmers Cooperative Society in September 2020. The collaborative agreement aims at developing strategic areas of cooperation that will allow for sustainable operation and management, enhance transfer of knowledge between the two parties, strengthen production and provide high quality fingerlings to farmers.7
Smallholder farming
Unlike the other Teso-speaking ethnic groups, the Iteso have never been nomadic; agriculture has played as significant a role in their social and economic, lives. Iteso men keep cattle while the women plant vegetables.
Cotton is the primary cash crop among the Iteso, which began cultivating cotton in the early 1900s. Eleusine (finger millet) is their major staple crop, along with sorghum. Other cash crops that are grown include cassava, maize, and tobacco.
Both men and women plant, weed, and harvest, but women are solely responsible for processing food crops, including threshing, grinding, and cooking.8
Poultry farming
Commerce and the public sector
The primary commercial activities are trading in cattle, owning small shops, and (in Kenya) employment in such public-sector jobs as local administration and school teaching.9
Industry
The primary occupations are carpentry, tailoring, butchery, and various indigenous skills, such as making the boards used for elee, a game of calculation played with seeds, which is the Iteso national pastime. Few of these are full time occupations. Men are responsible for building houses and clearing land.
7 University of Eldorat (2020). University Signs a Collaborative Agreement with Teso South Fish Farmers Cooperative Society.
8 Encyclopedia.com. Iteso. Op. cit.
9Go Visit Kenya, Iteso People and their Culture in Kenya. Accessed on 2 April 2023.