Farmers in Murang’a County have up to January 15 to register with their area chiefs to benefit from the government’s subsidy programme.
The area County Commissioner, Karuku Ngumo has asked the farmers to register with their area chiefs or their assistants starting from January 7 so that they can be able to benefit from among others, subsidised fertiliser.
“The farmers should register and provide the required information about their farms to ensure accuracy on the total number of farmers in Murang’a and their farm acreage for sufficient supply of the fertiliser,” said Ngumo.
Mr Ngumo, who spoke during training of local administrators about the registration exercise on Friday at Technology Primary School in Murang’a town, urged the chiefs and their assistants to ensure one hundred per cent coverage of household crop farmers so that no farmer is left unregistered.
“The chiefs and assistant chiefs are required to engage and work with the village elders to fast track the registration process,” averred Ngumo.
To reach out to a larger number of farmers, Ngumo said the registration will be done at the chiefs’ offices, plus visits to farmers and public barazas.
Crop farmers, especially those from areas bordering Aberdares forests where they major in coffee and tea growing, have in the past complained of lack of subsidised fertiliser leading to low production.
The National government has moved to register farmers to help in provision of subsidies including access to credit facilities through the E-voucher system.
Ngumo noted that the subsidised fertiliser will go a long way in helping farmers increase production, saying the farmers should provide correct information.
On his part, Murang’a East Deputy County Commissioner Thomas Nyoro speaking during the same event emphasised to the chiefs and assistant chiefs on the importance of registration exercise to be carried out in compliance with the Data Protection Act, 2019 and any other relevant laws.
“The administration is to ensure integrity of the data of the farmers’ information that is to be collected,” said Nyoro adding that chiefs’ and their assistants are expected to manage the information and publicity of the exercise at grassroots levels.
During the training exercise, adequate tablets device, training manuals and registration forms were issued to the chiefs and their assistants to enhance efficient registration exercise.
Nyoro said that information collected through the manual forms will be transmitted real time to the central server for further processing.
“The registration of farmers will be manually done and later be transferred to digital platform by the area chiefs and then transmitted real time to the central server for processing,” divulged Nyoro.
The Deputy Commissioner further said that the information gathered will assist the government to know the type of crops the farmers are growing and the total acreage so that they can supply the farmers with sufficient fertiliser.
Meanwhile, Murang’a County Director of Agriculture Peter Muchiri said farmers should focus on high production saying the fertiliser will ensure there is increased returns from farms’ produce.
“High production of the farm produce by the farmers can only be achieved if farmers apply the correct type of fertiliser to their crops,” said Muchiri adding that all farmers ought to take advantage of the government subsidy programme.
Muchiri lauded the government’s effort on the exercise, which is focusing on production of food and asked all the agriculture field officers to mobilise farmers for registration for maximum coverage.
“When we empower our farmers to produce more we will improve and increase production of food crops in the county,” observed Muchiri.
By Anita Omwenga and David Githii
