The World Bank has picked Nyeri County as one of the 40 counties that are set to benefit from funding for Climate Smart Agriculture Projects.
Speaking in Nyeri County when she led the World Bank Team for an inspection tour of Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Projects (KCSAP) in Mukurwe-ini and Kieni- East sub-counties, World Bank Food and Agriculture Practice Manager for Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, Shobha Shetty said that the new programme will be rolled out after the lapse of the current five-year KCSAP programme at the end of this year and is set to expand its reach to an additional 16 counties.
Currently, only 24 counties are implementing projects under KCSAP with funding going to the dairy sector, aquaculture and food crops such as banana, sweet potatoes and Irish potato farming. But with the new programme, Shetty noted, crops such as coffee and tea will also be included in the food value chain.
“We are focusing on identifying new areas of growth in the counties and further help them respond to the food insecurity crisis. The new programme will also see the inclusion of horticultural and cash crops such as coffee and tea in the food value chain which were not factored in the KCSAP,” said Shetty.
In Nyeri County, more than 400 farmers’ groups have been benefitting from KCSAP through the provision of improved seeds, training on new farming technologies including the use of technology to monitor rainfall and in some cases, provision of cheap credit for value addition ventures in agriculture.
During their inspection tour on Wednesday, the World Bank team which also included Vinay Kumar,a senior Agriculture and Rural Development Specialist and Nyeri KCSAP coordinator Alice Gichuki commended the county department of Agriculture for emerging position one in the implementation of KCSAP projects four years in a row.
By Wangari Mwangi
