Farmers in Uasin Gishu County have embraced diversification farming by embarking on coffee farming instead of maize in zoned areas that have favourable coffee farming climatic conditions.
The County Chief agricultural officer, Mr Julius Rotich said his office was offering farmers seedlings and also helping them in land preparation, including in designing the holes and entire planting process.
“We have registered farmers and they have been incorporated in our systems for them to easily access coffee seedling and offered any necessary assistance in making this crop a success in our county,” Rotich noted.
He assured coffee farmers that there was a ready market for their produce. “The coffee market has been stabilized following the enactment of new regulations. More over the market price of coffee is considerably high and, in our county, we have a new factory being set up that will be purchasing the produce once ready,” he said.
Rotich noted that coffee was cost effective and only required fertilizer including Calcium Ammonium Nitrate (CAN) to flourish. “As a measure of pest control, it requires pesticides and can be harvested in the next 100 years,” he explained
“The county has a budget to buy agrochemicals that will help curb pests that causes Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) and Cercospora leaf spot (Brown eye spot, Berry blotch) that are known to ruin coffee yields,” he said.
By Hassan Adan Ali
