Kirinyaga farmers upbeat about subsidized fertilizer, as county register 17,000 farmers
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.
