Counties

Western rice production boost hope as authority installs mill at Kibos

AheroRice

A rice farmer in Ahero. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The government is installing a Sh65 million rice milling machine in Kisumu, raising hope among farmers who had seen production dwindle over the years.

Lack of milling machines has been a serious setback for rice production in the region. The existing mill is slow and energy consuming.

Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) chairman Owidi Odoyo said the machine was ordered from India in 2019.

“Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the delivery of the machine was delayed. We finally have it and it is being installed at Lake Basin Development Authority (LBDA) Kibos rice mill complex,” said Mr Owidi.

He said the new mill will serve thousands of farmers from Ahero (Kisumu County) Nyatike (Migori County) and Bunyala (Busia County).

“The machine has the capacity to mill 3.5 tonnes of paddy rice per hour. We should be starting the milling by December,” said Mr Owidi.

Inefficiency

The old mill, also at the LBDA premise, was bought 30 years ago.

Due to it inefficiency, the authority was not able to take up the bulk of the rice from the region for processing.

With the new machine the authority plans to collect 24,000 tonnes of paddy for milling annually. Usually, the authority buys paddy, processes, packages and sells to local supermarkets and schools.

“We have confidence we will attain this quantity, process and sell the produce locally to promote rice farming in the region,” he said.

Mr Emmanuel Juma, a farmer in Ahero welcomed the development saying the old mills had made rice production a loss-making venture.

Besides the LBDA mill, Kisumu county government also intends to install a mill to boost processing. Last year Kisumu governor Anyang Nyong’o put the planned expenditure at Sh33 million