Machakos Deputy County Commissioner Mr. David Rotich has called for unity among Chiefs and their Assistant Chiefs as they are about to start the registration of farmers for the subsidized fertilizer.
The chiefs and assistant chiefs were attending a training for household farmer registration.
He said they should all join hands and involve the agricultural officers from the county government and village elders who are crucial in recruiting the farmers.
In this exercise we need each other and you cannot ignore the village elders and agricultural extension officers from the county who are all instrumental in completing the exercise,” said Rotich.
Rotich further reminded the chiefs on how they were united during the 100 per cent transition and campaign against illicit brew and drugs and that they should maintain that unity for the registration of farmers.
‘I urge all officers involved in the exercise to embrace the spirit of team work and multi-agency approach which has enabled us in the past to successfully execute presidential directives, such as security, 100% transition, crackdown on illicit brew and Covid-19 containment among others,” said Rotich.
The training is intended to equip the chiefs with requisite knowledge and skills necessary for the ongoing exercise.
Rotich said the exercise targets farmers participating in various crop production and its main aim is to establish a national database of all farmers which includes identity, profile, location, crop acreage and fertilizer requirement.
This information will assist the government in the provision of targeted interventions including subsidies and other farm inputs for improved productivity, profitability and attaining food security in the country.
This follows the presidential directive to support farmers with subsidized fertilizers through a digital system.
The government through the state department of crops, the ministry agriculture and livestock has embarked on a national household of farmer registration to facilitate farmers’ access to fertilizer via the e- voucher.
The National government administrations have been embraced as a grassroots structure to spearhead public education awareness and registration of farmer’s country wide.
The actual registration process will be conducted in two stages where in the first the assistant chiefs will record farmer’s details in a printed questionnaire.
The second phase the administrator will consolidate the filled questionnaires and feed them in a digitized form using preconfigured android tablets and smart phones to a central server for aggregation in real time.
All national government administration officers at all levels will be required to submit daily reports of the status of registration using a standard reporting template as part of tracking, monitoring and reporting the progress of the registration exercise.
The registration process will be free and voluntary based on informed decisions by farmers in the spirit of transparency.
By Anne Kangero
