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Kenya: Hope for Farmers As Project Opens New Income Front
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Business Daily (Nairobi)
13 December 2007
Posted to the web 13 December 2007
Philemon Suter
Kenya and Japan governments have embarked on an ambitious farming project targeting 92,000 families in the Kerio Valley region.
The Sh120 million venture will be supervised by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Ministry of Agriculture.
Project manager, Mr David Mutisya, says it covers five divisions of Tot and Tunyo in Marakwet; Metkei, Soy and Tambach in Keiyo.
"The project targets introduction of new food and cash crops and rearing of dairy goats for meat and milk production to boost farmers incomes," Mr Mutisya said.
Water and environment conservation are other components of the project under the Community Agricultural Development Project in Semi Arid Lands (Cadsal).
It is currently in the pilot phase but will be rolled out to individual farmers to boost their incomes and alleviate poverty.
The ministry has allocated Sh11.5 million and JICA Sh37 million to the project scheduled to end in 2010.
Other collaborators in the project include ministries of livestock and water and research bodies like the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI).
Cadsal is training farmers on new farming techniques that will help boost production of new cash crops introduced like the Nerica variety of rice developed from West Africa and Asia.
Trials on the rice varieties are ongoing with positive results so far in Tot and Tunyo.
Since 2004, trials have been carried out at Mwea, Ahero, Coast province, Juja, and Bungoma.
"The Kerio Valley region has given out the best results," Mr Mutisya says.
Unlike other rice varieties, Nerica takes about 100 to 120 days to mature and with supplemented irrigation the yield can increase by many tonnes per hectare.
"This venture could partly be the answer to Kenya's rising demand for rice which is now growing at the rate of 12 per cent," he says.
Last year, Kenya produced only 70,000 metric tonnes of rice against the total consumption of 240,000 metric tonnes.
"This forced the Government to spend over Sh7 billion to import 170,000 metric tonnes to bridge the gap," said Mutisya.
Nerica cultivation has taken off successfully in Egypt and the neighbouring Uganda among other countries in Africa.
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Farming groups participating in the venture are required to contribute 20 per cent of the total project cost and can qualify for a grant of up to Sh120,000.
So far, 30 community groups have enrolled.
Apart from Nerica and dairy goats, trials are also ongoing on a select variety of crops including drought resistant maize and cassava.
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