By Gilbert Ochieng
Some 1934 rice farmers in Bunyula, Busia County will directly benefit from three combine rice harvesters through a partnership.
Magombe Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society chairman Christopher Gunyi said gone were the days when rice farming was operated manually.
He pointed out that rice farmers from Bunyala Irrigation Scheme have been losing ten bags of rice per acre valued at Sh50, 000 each harvesting season as a result of the manual harvesting System that they have been using for five decades.
“The manual harvesting system of rice by farmers from Bunyala Irrigation Scheme have been using for the past fifty years has seen them incurring huge crop losses due to the spillage of rice totaling to the tune of ten bags of rice amounting to Sh50,000 per acre,” he said.
Gunyi said the loss of rice incurred as a result of manual harvesting system has forced the cooperative society to liaise with various stakeholders who have provided the rice farmers with two combine harvesters privately owned by rice farmers from Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
“We also have an Indian investor based in Nairobi who has provided the cooperative society with another combine harvester bringing the total to three”, he confided to the Sacco Review.
Godfrey Wanjala, one of the rice farmers from Bunyala Rice Irrigation scheme and a member of Magombe Multi-Purpose cooperative society said the arrival of combine harvesters is a blessing to the rice farmers who had for long been relying on the manual system of harvesting.
Wanjala said apart from the crop loss through spillage during threshing and winnowing stages, birds especially the quelea species cause much damage to the rice crop at the harvesting stage.
