Kiambu County’s agriculture ministry has devised a strategy to enhance food production in the area.
The county’s crops officer, Ken Mutua, says the ministry has procured some fertiliser and maize seed worth Sh9 million through the Input Access Program (IAP) which will benefit 150 farmers from each of the 60 wards in the county.
According to the officer who was addressing the press in Kiambu, each of the 12 sub-counties had been given a tractor which will be hired to farmers at Sh2,000 instead of the commercial rate of Sh3,500.
To check post-harvest rotting of the produce, Mutua said that 4,000 hermetic gunny bags were to be procured.
These air tight bags, he explained, would be used to store the cereals to avoid bacterial infection which leads to rotting.
“Farmers in the region incur loss due to poor storage facilities and the hermetic bags which are air tight will be of great importance as dried maize can be stored at 13 degree celsius without the maize getting spoilt,” explained Mutua.
By extension, the ministry has put in place an income generating activity which includes the banana farming that will be preceded by distribution of 50,000 banana seedlings worth Sh7.5 million to all the wards in a month.
He stressed that the farmers will be given the seedlings for free.
“I, therefore, call upon the farmers to follow instructions offered to them by our field officers as they visit them in their respective farms and indeed as a County we shall count ourselves out of the poverty bracket in the near future for the production will have increased,” Mutua advised.