Over 18,000 farmers in Kisii County are set to benefit from the ‘buy one get one free’ banana initiative.
The initiative is between the county government, United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Kenya Agricultural Value Chain Enterprises (KAVES) meant to boost farmers by giving them genetically modified banana suckers.
Kisii county Minister for Agriculture Vincent Sagwe applauded efforts put by the county government in partnership with USAID-KAVES in up scaling renewal of bananas in Kisii.
Speaking when he received the banana suckers from USAID-KAVES officers at the department of agriculture in Kisii on Monday, Sagwe encouraged farmers to plant more bananas and make Kisii a more banana consuming region.
The minister also encouraged farmers to buy their own suckers.
He also encouraged farmers to join cooperative societies to boost banana production.
“The county government has bought 30,000 banana suckers which will be given to farmers,” he said.
Kisii agronomist Onyancha Ogucha said they started with 50 groups in the year 2013 and now they have 180 groups, each with 20 members.
“So far we have reached 18,000 farmers across the county,” the agronomist said.
USAID-KAVES technical director George Odingo said they will scale up the project in the whole region so that farmers can make more income out of it.
Odingo said that they will procure more than 10,000 banana suckers and they are aiming to procure 80,000.
Being a home of bananas, the county government is putting more efforts to have bananas as the backbone of horticulture in Kisii.