Dr Paul Omanga has welcomed his appointment to head a taskforce on rice value addition. Omanga, who was appointed by Kisumu County Governor Jack Ranguma to head the taskforce, said he has what it takes to ensure the taskforce delivers its mandate. He said rice production is the main stay for the people of Kisumu County and there is need to boost the sector. "For the last 30 years I have been offering my agricultural expertise to a number of organisations and I am happy that I will offer the same to my people,” he said. Omanga added that there is an irrigation scheme being run by the national irrigation board while other schemes are also being run by farmers themselves noting that some of these schemes are underutilised due to a number of challenges thus the need to form the taskforce. Speaking in Kisumu, Omanga said rice farmers are unable to find ready market for their produce and in most occasions fetch very low pay. “The taskforce team has a full tray work and we must deliver for rice farmers to be able to reap good returns from their farms,” he said. He stated that the taskforce will come up with ideas on how to make rice farming a lucrative venture to avert the large shift from rice farming to other cash crops. “I want to tell rice farmers shifting to other crops that money, and good money for that matter, is in rice farming. We are going to fine tune some areas and make this sector profitable,” Omanga noted that farmers must be able to reap good money from rice production and the county government must come to their aid and improve of infrastructure and find market for the farmers.

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