The advent of Covid 19 has hampered the annual agricultural exhibitions across the country with Migori County not being able to organize agricultural show exhibitions, citing the outbreak of Covid as the main hindrance for over the last two years.
For this reason, the county government of Migori through the department of agriculture, livestock and fisheries together with other key stakeholders in the agricultural sector in the county, hosted a successful agricultural exhibition.
The exhibition graced at the Oyani farm in Suna East brought together farmers, stakeholders, agricultural promoters and various Non-Government organization (NGO) participants in the agricultural sector across the entire county.
During the event, Send a Cow NGO who are main partner organizer through their Migori County coordinator Mrs. Beatrice Were, said that farmers have been in desperate need of new technologies and also to showcase their agricultural products for the past two years thus they saw the need to host one exhibition this year in partnership with the county government of Migori.
“With the theme of the event being accelerating adoption of agricultural technologies for farmers in Migori County, we as Send a Cow organization, we wanted to ensure that all our farmers maximize adoption of these new technologies to increase production, that’s why we partnered with the county to host this exhibition,” stated Were.
In addition, she added that their main aim is training, resourcing farming and transforming farmers so that they utilize land to increase food surplus and curb food insecurities.
The Send a Cow organization boasts of a warm reception from farmers since its inception in the county. Through them, farmers have acquired skills in the field of agriculture while at the same time eradicated malnutrition.
“Farmers learnt among themselves the new technologies, new ways of improving and making agriculture better. We have witnessed a sales surplus and also there is a notable change in income from an average of fifty shillings to three hundred shillings,” concluded Were.
The National Agricultural and Rural Inclusive Growth Project (NARIGP) through their extension officer in Migori County, Mr. Rueben Tunai, stated that this year’s exhibition their main achievement has been on supporting sweet potatoes value chain addition.
This has been enhanced through the mechanization of orange flesh sweet potatoes variety due to its nutrient value, multiplication of sweet potato vines and also for continuous food sustainability.
“Since we started offering extension services to farmers, we have seen farmers being in the position to multiply seeds and sell to other farmers thus making double profits, as this is one of the NARIGP’s main agenda of increasing productivity,” said Tunai.
Other agricultural promoters in the county who sent their representatives like Cereal Growers Association (CGA), Food To Market (FTM) alliance, Kenya Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Eradication Council (KENTTEC), BlueCross Nyatike Community Development Programme among others, said they at least have a sigh of relief as they needed an opportunity to inform farmers of the newest technologies on improved farming methods to boost agricultural productions. They said that this will help farmers make better farming decisions come planting season.