Month: November 2018

Today, an association of tea farmers and other stakeholders in the industry held a consultative meeting with senior officials from the Cooperative Development department in an effort to find solutions to the challenges ailing the tea sector.

Tea farmers had an opportunity to engage and air their grievances bedevilling them to the CECM Agriculture & Cooperative Development Dr Kiplimo Araap Lagat, CO Cooperative Development Dr. Benedette Tiony, CO Agriculture Mr. Wilson Lelei and Director Cooperative Development Mr. Stalin Koech.

Some of the challenges highlighted by the farmers include high cost of production, poor governance among cooperatives, tea hawking where brokers continue to use information asymmetry to farmers disadvantage among others.

CECM Agriculture and Cooperative Development Dr, Kiplimo Lagat giving his remarks. {PHOTO COURTESY}

Dr Lagat reaffirmed his commitment to address and fix the problems in the industry once and for all in the interest of the tea farmers.

“We want to work with Sacco(s), cooperatives and societies hand in hand to fix the challenges faced by members”.

CO for Cooperatives Dr. Tiony agreed with Dr Lagat saying that societies need to fix the gaps of governance in their respective cooperative if they want to prosper.”

Chief Officer Cooperative Development Dr. Benedette Tiony

Mr. Lelei who is the CO in charge of Agriculture said that one of the solutions to the problems being faced by the sector can be addressed through introduction of a subsidy program that would see farmers get inputs at affordable prices.

Tea farming in Nandi is an important sector of the economy hence the need to support the sector that employs thousands of our residents and generates a lot of revenue to our county.#TransformingNandi

The Dairy sector in Nandi received a major boost today after the national Government delivered a milk cooler worth KES8.5M commissioned by the deputy president during the realignment of Government’s ‘Big Four Agenda’ on 24th September.

A lorry offloading the newly acquired milk cooler

A 3000 litres capacity milk cooler was delivered to Meteitei Dairy Cooperative Society which has a membership of over 300 farmers.

The County Government has set aside KES30M to support 30 cooperatives across the county to set up a structure that will host similar coolers.

Already a team from the department of Agriculture and Cooperative Development is visiting proposed milk cooling sites to assess and ascertain them before contractors move to site.

This is a milestone to both levels of governments as it complements the National Government’s Big Four Agenda on food security as well as the county’s vision to set up the first milk processing plant in the county.

#TransformingNandi