Vihiga county banks on agri-business to address poverty
By Enock Amukhale, October 17, 2022
As Kenya joined the world in marking World Food Day yesterday, addressing food security in the face of climate change is a major challenge for many county governments.
Vihiga Governor Dr Wilber Ottichilo, who is an environmentalist by profession and also the chairperson of the climate change committee in the Council of Governors (CoG) says his administration has put in place sober adaptive measures to enhance food security.
He says his government fully supports farmers to venture into commercial agri-business to promote the economy, good health among residents and boost bio-diversity to check on climate change.
Through funds from county government and partners such as National Agriculture and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIGP), Airbus, Locate IT and French agtech company, itk, through Kilimo Project, many farmers have been supported to venture into commercial farming.
Supporting farmers He shares how his government has focused more on financing farmers to venture into cultivation of traditional vegetables, poultry, fish and dairy farming on commercial scales. He has further given out over 600 dairy cows to farmers to enhance milk production.
He says the farmers have been supplied with Artificial Insemination (AI) machines and high quality breeds to upgrade their dairy cows. Over Sh500 million has been given to dairy farmers in Vihiga and milk cooling machines established in Vihiga, Emuhaya and Sabatia subcounties where dairy farmers take their milk to help preserve milk.
“We have done a lot in dairy farming where farmers in Vihiga have started producing a lot of milk to serve the residents. We are now thinking of value addition for our surplus milk,” says Ottichilo.
On green vegetable farming, governor Ottichilo discloses that over 3,000 farmers in 10 sub-locations operating in groups have also received over Sh300,000.
Irrigation projects To enhance vegetable production, Ottichilo says farmers have been connected with water to irrigate their farms.
He shares how a Sh40 million irrigation project was built with the support of the World Bank.
“I have used climate change mitigation funds to connect water to residents in 25 wards in Vihiga county for irrigation and other domestic usage. I have also launched a Sh 40million irrigation project in Wemilabe ward to supply water for irrigation,” says Ottichilo.
Irrigation, the governor says, will help farmers to produce food throughout the year without depending on rainfall, which is not reliable. Ottichilo says his administration is also supporting commercial fish farming where farmers are supplied with fish fingerlings for free.
The county has established a giant fingerlings production centre located at Mwitoko in Luanda sub-county. Vihiga has over 300 registered fish farmers. In the near future, the environmentalist says Vihiga county will have a fish processing industry.