The Mountain Journal
Kirinyaga county farmers are upbeat
about the subsidized fertilizer that has been availed to them
in fulfilment of President Ruto’s
election pledge to farmers.
The county has already registered
17,000 farmers in the NCPB data base with the number
expected to go higher after the
conclusion of the ongoing farmers’ registration exercise.
Speaking during Kirinyaga County
Assembly inaugural sitting, Governor Anne Waiguru
reiterated her administration’s
commitment in supporting farmers to maximize their agricultural
production.
Once they are registered, the
farmers are supposed to make their requisition and pay for the
commodity after which the department
of agriculture collates the data from various farmers and
transports them from NCPB deport to
ward centres for collection by individual farmers.
“To promote other areas of
agriculture, we are at the forefront of lobbying for subsidized farm
inputs to reduce the cost of production
and enable farmers get better returns. We have already
secured over 25,000 bags of
fertilizer in our NCPB stores this month and we are in the course of
distributing it to our farmers
through our agricultural extension offices”, said the governor.
Farmers are looking forward to
receiving the fertilizer in the hope that it will help them get better
harvests in the coming season.
Albert Njeru from Njukii-ini ward
thanked governor Waiguru for making it easy for farmers to
get the fertilizers by taking it to
the ward levels. He said that the reduction of price of DAP from
Ksh. 6,500 to Ksh. 3,500 would go a
long way in enabling farmers get better harvests in the
coming season.
Magdaline Maina, a farmer from
Kanyeki-ini said that the subsidized commodity will enable her
expand on the area of land that she
has been tilling which will in turn increase harvest and fetch
better income.
The farmers also thanked President
Ruto for fulfilling his election pledge on subsidized
fertilizers saying that small holder
farmers are pivotal in stimulating the economic growth at the
grassroots in support of the bottom
up economic model.
The ongoing registration at the ward
levels require a farmer to prove land ownership and the size
of land and the bags they would
require to buy. Registered farmers also have the option of
walking into the NCPB depot and
personally collecting the fertilizers.
Kirinyaga County is a predominantly
agricultural county with 52,890 hectares being used for
subsistence farming. The rising cost
of farm inputs such as fertilizers has however made many
farmers shy away from crop farming,
but with interventions such as subsidized fertilizers, more
farmers are expected increase
agricultural production..
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