Over 8,000 vulnerable farmers in Webuye West Constituency, Bungoma County, have received free maize seeds from philanthropist Joseph Lendrix Waswa to support food production and improve livelihoods.
Efforts to boost food production have been intensified after the County Government of Kilifi rolled out affordable tractor-ploughing services for farmers in the region as they prepare their farms for the next planting season.
There has been all sorts of stories about fertilizers in the country from fake ones to allegedly free fertilizers provided by the Kenya government.
Kenya: Government knowingly supplied fake fertiliser to farmers, agency says
By Victor Abuso
Posted on April 2, 2024
Bags of fertiliser are unloaded from a truck at Kipkebe Tea Estate in Musereita, Kenya’s Rift Valley region.
President William Ruto’s administration is under scrutiny after it emerged that government officials from the ministry of agriculture and livestock have been supplying fake subsidized fertilizer across the country for farmers to buy.
That was the main story for Kenyan farmers in April last year.
Today the headline story from the Kenya government is that they are providing millions of bags or free fertilizer to Kenyan farmers. Great.
The one thing Kenyans don’t hear about and which they need the most is how they are going to plough their pieces of land so it can be ready for crops and fertilizers.
I know this from experience.
Me and my sisters we have good amount of land and we were trying to farm all of it. Then I go home and my sisters tell me we have to buy a tractor to plough the land otherwise it is impossible.
In the old days people like my father who was a great farmer used oxen ploughs to dig the land. It worked for them. Today we do not even have oxen anywhere I know, forget the oxen plough.
For millions of Kenyans the heavy labour old hoe is still their primary way of farming their lands. How long must this last?
So my sisters told me to go get the tractor.
I go back to Canada and we go to the rural farming areas with my buddies and we get good deals for farm tractors. Then we ask about shipping it home after we buy the tractor. It costs like $ 10,000 for one container and then you have to pay for all other things including tax in Kenya.
So we gave up on that plan and decided to buy a used tractor in Kenya and we got one in Nakuru. It was expensive but good and then we had to spend so much more to get it in working shape. That is when we started farming with my sisters and family.
At that time they could use fertilizers and in the home town they had very good agricultural officers who told them what is best to plant in each season and they used fertilizers. If they didn’t plough their pieces of land they would never even go to the agriculture officer because they would not need fertilizers.
So the BIG question Kenyans need to ask the Ruto government now is to say thank you for the fertilizers but unless we plough our pieces of land we cannot use fertilizers.
At the end of the day all the fertilizer from the government ends up in the hands of large scale farmers who have huge farms all over the country and they are ready to use the fertilizer right now in the middle of big rains.
The small farmer out there is staring at their barren land and is struggling to get food to stay alive. If that barren land in front of their homes could be ploughed they could plant all kinds of stuff starting with what gives them food.
One day that would be a priority for our country when we have a government that values the lives of Kenyans and not just the lives of the rich in the nation. That day is coming.
