35,000 farmers in Bungoma get free fertiliser

More than 35,000 farmers in Bungoma have benefited from an ambitious free fertiliser distribution programme.

Speaking in Namwela, Sirisia Constituency, on Wednesday during the distribution of the commodity, Governor Ken Lusaka said the move would also help in reducing poverty and increase food production.

“We started by giving out 200 bags of the commodity to farmers in every ward in 2013. Three years later, we increased it to 400. Today, we are distributing 700 bags in each of our 45 wards, by next year, if all goes well, the number of beneficiaries would have double,” said Mr Lusaka.

According to the governor, the process is being spearheaded by the members of the public “to check on any skewed distribution and unfairness in the process”.

So far, the impact on the fertiliser subsidy has yielded results with research by the Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organisation saying that yields from the free fertilisers have been increasing.

In 2013, an acre of land without the use of fertilisers yielded 14 bags. With fertiliser, production per acre went up to 24 bags on average.
Mr Lusaka said the county was not just distributing the fertilisers but also assisting the peasant farmers by ploughing their pieces of lands and carrying out free soil testing to determine the right variety of fertilisers to apply.

“We have also launched an ambitious extension service to help farmers boost production,” he said.

Agriculture Executive Laurian Kolikho noted that fertiliser use in the country had been on the rise in the past five years, an indication that farmers are appreciating the importance and value of the critical ingredient in agriculture.

In 2009, Mr Kolikho said, Kenyan farmers were using between 20,000 and 30,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser annually. As at January 2015, this figure had gone up to between 70,000 and 80,000 metric tonnes a year.

“With this development, we see a situation where Kenya will be food secure in few years to come, thus bringing down the high cost of importing food from other countries,” he said.

Ms Priscilla Nekesa, a farmer in Namwela, says the free fertiliser will help her increase crop production in her one-acre piece of land, thus enabling her pay school fees for her four children.

“We hope the county will increase the number of bags of fertilisers to two per person next year,” she said.