Over 90 % of the farmers around Marsabit Mountain, a pocket of arable land amidst a predominantly arid area in northern Kenya, are former pastoralists, unfamiliar with productive and sustainable farming technologies. This paper describes how encouraging farmer innovativeness enhanced adoption and adaptation of water-saving technologies to suit individual farmers' needs. When farmers understood the principles behind a technology they were more likely to adapt it. Both men and women farmers were most interested in increasing their available income through improved technologies, but more women than men ranked labour saving as an important attribute of a new technology. More women adopted the new technologies, but men used them on a larger area than women. The paper also shows that agricultural productivity can substantially increase even if the theoretical full potential of the recommended practices might not be achieved. It is concluded that farmers need to be exposed to new ideas in exciting and thought provoking ways to tap their innovation potential.