Waiguru gives 86,000 chicks to 77 farmers groups to boost one million eggs project
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru has today given out 86,000 improved kienyeji chicks for distribution to 77 farmers groups across the county. The chicks will boost the ongoing poultry project in which farmers’ groups are supported to produce at least one million eggs in a month.
Out of these chicks, 54,000 of them will go 45 newly recruited groups which will each receive 1,200 chicks while 32,000 chicks will be given as restocking brood for the previously existing 32 groups each of which will receive 1,000 chicks.
While handing over the chicks for Kagumo-ini A Self Help Group in Mwea, the governor said that egg production is one of the projects that the county government is funding farmers to undertake in order to increase their agricultural production and incomes. “The mass egg production project is aimed at improving the livelihoods of Kirinyaga people by providing them with alternative income streams thereby reducing overreliance on the conventional cash crop farming”, said the governor.
She added that the groups will also receive free quality chicken feeds from the county’s Kiaga animal feeds factory for six months and thereafter access the same feeds at a subsidized cost. To guarantee returns for the project, Waiguru said that once the eggs are harvested, they are collected and taken to the storage facility at Kiaga where they are packaged and branded before being marketed on behalf of the farmers by Kirinyaga Investment Development Authority (KIDA).
She pointed out that through Wezesha Kirinyaga program, her administration is currently supporting more than 300 farmers groups to diversify agricultural activities through projects such as poultry keeping, avocado, tomato, dairy and fish farming, pig rearing as well as bee keeping.
