The Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organization (KALRO) has been establishing ‘Mkulima Shops’ across the country where farmers could access quality certified crop varieties and get agricultural information.
This initiative is geared towards opening a one stop shop that is stocked with clean planting materials in order to enhance farmers’ capability to produce more food while accessing clean seeds and climate tolerant seedlings.
Speaking while opening Mkulima Shop at the Muguga Research station Wednesday, Deputy Director in charge of Crops at KALRO Dr. Felister Makini said that so far, they have opened up 10 other such shops across the country.
“We have initiated a process to ease access of the farming materials and thus guarantee high food production and going forward, we will establish six more to ensure farmers access planting materials at competitive rates,” she said.
Dr. Makini explained that the idea to open the shops was part of exposing the institutions technologies and especially climate smart agriculture technologies to the farmers to enable them to produce more food.
“This will be our 11th Mkulima shop and they are all stocked with certified and disease-free seeds and seedlings that are also being sold at subsidized prices compared to the rates being offered by the private companies,” she added.
She noted that as KALRO, they want to make sure that their technologies and seeds from the improved varieties were available so that farmers no longer have to keep on wondering where to get the KALRO seeds varieties.
Dr. Makini observed that due to lack of certified seeds, farmers tended to recycle their produce leading to spread of diseases and pests thus experience decline in food production.
“We are also encouraging farmers to use certified seed, because even the vines, the cuttings, the seedlings are all certified by the Kenya Plant Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS), to ensure that farmers are getting clean seed,” she confirmed.
She noted that the griculture sector has been grappling with climate change effects especially new diseases and pests and crops being vulnerable to rising temperatures.
“Due to low unreliable rainfall, KALRO and other research agencies have been undertaking investigations on various challenges resulting in production of climate and drought tolerant varieties.
For example, new bean varieties –Nyota are popular and boost farmers’ production as they are drought tolerant and can grow in wider ecological zones. Farmers will also benefit from good agricultural knowledge by the researchers as well answers to many challenges they are battling,” she added.
Further, Dr. Makini said that by being climate smart, they were making sure that the varieties and technologies are actually classified for climate smartness.
“We can say this product is climate smart for mitigation, adaptation, and productivity since those are the three criteria used to identify the climate smart varieties,” he explained.
KALRO Director of seeds Robert Musyoki confirmed that every year, over 2000 metric tonnes of seeds are produced annually and the volume was expected to increase as more shops are opened.
Most of the produced seeds include beans, cowpeas, sorghum, and maize. He gave an example of bean varieties that are leading in terms of being high yielding, popular and with a uptake high.
“A bean like Nyota variety is highly in demand due to its high nutritional value in terms of iron and zinc and also cooks fast,” said Musyoki.
“We still have a section of farmers who still have reservations on adopting the new technologies but with the climate changes being here with us and also affecting the world, the government is working hard to ensure that the varieties that are being produced are climate smart and able to combat the environmental changes,” Musyoki noted.
Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) has rolled out the elaborate programme to scale up the availability of certified seeds across the country last year in September.
The ‘Mkulima Shop’ initiative under the State Agency plans to open 16 outlets across the country for farmers to access quality certified seeds.
By Wangari Ndirangu
