Tomato farmers from Riakemuma village, Giasaiga sub-location in Sameta sub-county are appealing for soil testing and sampling.
The farmers have appealed to the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to conduct soil sampling and testing in the area to ascertain the causes of poor performance of the tomato crop.
Led by Hezekiah Ogega, one of the local horticultural farmers, the farmers asked KARI to guide them on the way forward concerning the crop which they say has a lucrative market locally.
Ocharo lamented that their efforts to invest in tomato farming have been frustrated by withering of the crop during the flowering stage, causing them a lot of losses in terms of chemicals and farm labour expenses.
Speaking to this writer at Riakemuma village, Ogega stated that despite the area being endowed with favourable rains and fertile soils, the tomato crop which formerly used to do well has been subjected to total extinction as majority of the local farmers have been discouraged and abandoned the crop for other alternative horticultural crops to earn their daily incomes.
"Historically, the tomato crop used to do well in our area until the late 90s when we started recording poor crop yields from the crop and to date we are yet to know the cause of the crop's poor performance," lamented Ogega.
Agnes Bosibori, another farmer from the area expresses concern that despite the area having a lucrative market for tomatoes, majority of the traders access the commodity from outside the area as far as Nakuru which is the main supplier of the commodity to the Kisii-based traders.
"Researchers should collect soil samples from our area to test and find out why the crop which formerly did well here has failed completely leading to shortage of local tomato breeds which we used to grow for our local markets and household consumption," said Bosibori.