Over the years, farmers have been grappling with a shortage of clean potato seeds affecting production of the crop. But this should be a thing of the past as seeds growers adopt new technologies, one which was showcased recently at a potato fair at the Wambugu Agriculture Training Centre in Nyeri. The technology is known as rooted apical cutting, and is aimed at addressing the…
Cartels have exploited loopholes in vetting channels to access Government-subsidised fertiliser, which they are now selling to maize farmers at a higher price. Unscrupulous traders are said to have compromised the vetting committees charged with identifying genuine farmers to enable them to buy the input at a subsidised price of Sh1, 500 from the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) stores. The cartels are allegedly…
For many years, Mwea Irrigation Scheme farmers have grappled with disposing of rice stalks and husks, which take a long time to decompose. For more than 60 years, since the formation of the Mwea Irrigation Board, farmers have had to burn the stalks and husks, which presents another challenge – producing too much ash. This will no longer be the case after it emerged that…
By Christopher Mutisya With Kenya being a food deficit country importing up to 20% of its annual cereal requirements, the improvement of cereal and pulse production remains constrained by climate change effects arising from poor adoption of improved seed varieties, inefficient water and soil management, inefficient fertilizer use, lack of conservation agriculture practices, inadequate crop diversification coupled with poor access to agromet information. According to…
