Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has called on farmers to embrace technology and other new global trends shaping modern day agriculture.
Speaking at the Jamhuri Park ASK Showground in Nairobi where he officially opened Agriculture and Food Security Transformation Summit, DP Kindiki maintained that smart and precision agriculture is rapidly taking root in the country.
Noting that the future of agriculture revolves around technology, DP Kindiki added that research and innovation had been stepped up, leading to new crop varieties, better animal breeds and improved farming yields.
Precision farming takes root
“I am very happy to see technology being applied in our farming, the world is moving towards smart farming and I have seen a lot of technology,” he said, citing the use of drones in farmers, boosting precision agriculture.
“That is the future of agriculture where you apply fertilizer and pesticides to the crop that requires that input and not to apply everywhere,” he said, adding: “You can use the right quantities that are needed and this precision farming is the next frontier of our agriculture.”
The Deputy President said adoption of new technology was part of the broader plan that the government adopted four years ago. “Four years ago, the government decided to place agriculture at the center of Kenya’s transformation,” he said.
Farmer registration and lower input costs
He said that the government was also working closely with farmers and other stakeholders in the agriculture sector. “We upgraded the register of farmers which had only 300,000 of them to the current database of 7.2 million crop farmers and 3 million livestock keepers,” he stated.
Accompanied by Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, Bungoma Governor Ken Lusaka and other top government officials, DP Kindiki said that the fertilizer prices had been reduced by more than a half, boosting production significantly.
Specifically, he said that the price of a bag of fertilizer had reduced from Sh7000 to 2000 owing to the government subsidy programme. “Certified maize seed price has fallen by 50% from 300 to Sh150 per kilogram,” he pointed out.
Livestock vaccination and rising exports
And, as part of the broader plan to improve livestock breeds, he said that the price of sexed semen for artificial insemination of dairy cows had been reduced from Sh8,000 to Sh1,400 per dose.
At the same time, he said that 8.9 million cattle had been vaccinated in an ongoing programme targeting the entire population of 22 million cattle and 50 million small stocks in the country.
Kenya, he said, was now the leading exporter of processed milk in Africa noting that milk production increased from 4.6 to 5.2 billion liters during the period.
“The value of dairy products has risen from Sh4.9 to Sh8.9 billion while that of meat exports has risen from Sh8.9 to Sh12.9 billion,” he affirmed.
