Category: Cooperative Development

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

By Cornelius Kipkoech Chebwaai.

Plans to establish the first ever milk processing factory in Nandi has kicked off after the County Government of Nandi begun to hold a series of consultative meetings with dairy stakeholders in the county to lay down all the necessary strategies.

In a consultative meeting held in Kapsabet with all the Dairy Cooperative Societies in Nandi on Tuesday, Nandi Governor Stephen Sang said the County government has allocated 115 Million shillings in the 2018/2019 financial year towards the establishment of the milk processing plant and the process of building the factory and acquisition of machines will begin before the end of this year.

However, Governor sang lamented that low volumes of milk being produced currently could adversely affect the 200,000 Capacity factory once it is operational.

Sang said the current capacity of milk produced stands at 51,000 Litres only and there were need for the farmers to improve the productivity to meet the capacity of the processing plant.

The county boss said the his administration will  continue to work tirelessly  to ensure that the daily milk production targets are met as the construction of the milk factory gets underway citing the already running Artificial Insemination program as one of the ambitious interventions by his government to ensure that high quality livestock breeds are sired for the dairy farmers.

On the other hand, Dairy farmers lauded governor Sang’s efforts to transform the County’s Agriculture sector pledging to put together their efforts to ensure the success of the Value Addition Strategies laid down by his government.

It is estimated that nearly 17,000 households in Nandi practice small scale dairy farming with an Avarage milk production standing at a paltry 3Litres per household.