The government has assured farmers in the country that it is going to address challenges facing the agriculture sector in the country in a bid to improve food security in the country.
Principal Secretary (PS) in the State Department of Agriculture Dr Kiprono Rono who was speaking during the just concluded Kisumu Regional ASK show stated that the recent reforms which were put in place including issuing of subsidized fertilizer to farmers which has increased food security.
He pointed out that during the 2023 crop production season; there was an increase of 43 per cent in maize production, adding that a total of 60.2 million Bags (90 Kgs) of maize for both long and short rains season were produced, while an estimated 7.14Million Bags (90 Kgs Bags) of beans, 4.89 Million Bags (90 Kgs Bags) of wheat and 189,024 MT of rice being produced over the same period.
According to the National Food and Nutrition Security Monitoring Report, Ronoh said, food insecurity has decreased to 1.9 million people compared to 2.7 million in July 2023.
The PS revealed that the government has launched a digital platform for the registration of farmers, noting that already 6.42 million farmers have been registered up from 1.3 million farmers in 2022 representing a 300 per cent increase.
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Ronoh said under the government’s bottom up transformation agenda (BETA), the Government has prioritized edible oils, rice, cotton, tea, coffee, beef, leather and dairy value chains for accelerated promotion and development.
This year, the PS said, the Government will avail a total 12.5 million bags of subsidized fertilizer to farmers in all the 1,450 wards across the country for both long and short rains seasons.
By addressing the challenges facing the tea sub-sector, he explained, they have recorded increased earnings by 17.8 per cent for smallholder farmers from Ksh50.18 to Ksh59.02 per kg of green leaf tea; while the on-going reforms in the coffee sector has seen a total of Ksh2 billion of Ksh4 billion coffee cherry fund being repaid.
According to Dr. Rono, the government has expanded the land under cotton production from 10,000 acres in 2022 to 35,000 acres in 2023 with prices of seed cotton increasing from Ksh52 per Kg in 2022 to Ksh65 per Kg in 2023 in a move to motivate more farmers to engage in cotton farming.
He was flanked by the Kisumu regional ASK Chairman George Ongudi and the chief steward Rose Omondi.
By Fredrick Odiero
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