Kisii farmers have been encouraged to form commodity marketing groups and cooperatives in order to enhance their access to inputs and produce bargaining power in order to achieve higher returns in agricultural enterprise investments.
Speaking at Gusii Stadium on Friday in the ongoing Southern Kenya ASK show, governor Ongwae said grouping would help break intermediaries who con farmers and some sell decertified inputs to farmers.
“The cooperative societies are key in supporting agricultural growth. This region has more than 146 registered cooperative societies although some are dormant. They are involved in the marketing of pyrethrum, coffee and milk amongst other agricultural commodities. For that matter, I encourage farmers to form groups so that they can get certified farm inputs,” he encouraged.
He added, “I ask farmers to establish and manage strong cooperatives, to facilitate access to quality farm inputs and marketing of farm produce and competitive rates. To this end the Kisii County Government has assisted the avocado farmers in forming and registration of the Kisii County Avocado Cooperative Union.”
Governor Ongwae said the government has streamlined the laws and regulations to foster transparency, accountability and ensuring that proper governance structures are put in place for
He reiterated that road network in rural development would be improved to link farmers to markets.
“In this regard, my Government built access roads boosting market access for our agricultural produce,” he posed.
Mr. Ongwae urged Kisii youths to take advantage of The Uwezo Fund established by the National Government by forming up viable groups to enable them solicit for funds for investments in market oriented agricultural businesses.
He acknowledged various financial institutions that offer credit to farmers for agricultural enterprises development in this region among them being; Women Economic Development Corporation (WEDCO), Cooperative Bank, Family Bank, Equity Bank, Gusii Rural SACCO, K-REP Bank and Adventist Development Relief Agency (ADRA) Kenya.
However, Governor Ongwae noted that myriad challenges confront the sector that causes crawling development.
“High population density coupled with small farm holdings that average 0.4 hectares per farm holding unsuitable for mechanized farming, inappropriate farming techniques practiced by our farmers that have led to reduced yields due to the deterioration in fertility of our soils, poor marketing systems dominated by exploitative middlemen leading to low returns to farmers for example coffee, bananas and tea, absence of storage and preservation facilities leading to high post-harvest losses like banana, vegetables and issues of credit access, expensive inputs and absence of value addition making the sector primarily subsistence in nature are some of the main challenges that are hitting us,” observed governor Ongwae.
He appealed to all stakeholders to combine efforts in establishing the possible ways of achieving the best in agriculture in Kisii.