The County Government of Nakuru has reiterated its commitment towards promoting urban agriculture.
County Executive for Agriculture Dr Immaculate Maina says already they have developed a bill on agriculture that will address some of the challenges surrounding food security.
Addressing media on Tuesday at a workshop on urban agriculture and a discussion on the Nakuru County urban agriculture Bill 2019, the CeC said with Nakuru becoming a city, there is need to start focusing on urban agriculture.
“We’re here to discuss the urban agriculture Bill. As you know, Nakuru is becoming a city and with a population of more than 200,000 persons then there is need to stand thinking about our food systems” said Dr Maina.
The Bill, according to the County Executive, will help in ensuring that the agriculture practices are intensified even on a small scale.
It will also focus on how to link the city consumers with rural producers in relation to the urban food system. The urban agriculture will focus more on horticulture-crops that will not create security menace in the city.
“We want to see how we can contribute to urban food system by intensifying farming on small scale,” she noted.
Nakuru County Assembly Agriculture Committee Vice-Chair Wilson Mwangi on his part assured that once the Bill is presented to the Assembly, they will lobby for it to ensure that it sails through.
Dr Samuel Omondi, a Postdoc researcher at the University of Nairobi with the Department of Agriculture and economics says the future of urban agriculture is paramount with the growth of towns to cities.
“Urban agriculture is just one of the many components of ensuring food security in towns. At the moment it is unstructured but I must commend Nakuru county for coming up with the Bill" said Dr Omondi.