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Govt considers Agriculture mandatory school subject to up ‘cool’ factor

“That said, where there is no guarantee to market, the failure rate is up to about 80 per cent. They will not repay the loan we extended. So we need to begin to think about contract farming where we are allowing young people to go into that space when they have a guaranteed access to market. I’m happy that Vimal Shah (Bidco) this morning made a commitment to me in front of the CS that he is willing to give unlimited supply contracts to young people if they go into soya and sunflower and it is those kinds of negotiations that we want to now have with the private sector.”

In keeping with the, “cool,” theme, Bett at Monday’s summit made a number of commitments on behalf of Government including for the establishment of 990 milk cooling facilities country wide.

“What is happening is that milk being perishable, was being sold at a throw away price. With access to cooling facilities, the farmer is able to negotiate for better prices.”

He also announced that a second Bull Station would be established by year’s end to improve on the quality of breeding herds.

“There’s nothing much we can do in terms of production if we continue insisting on the traditional breeds and so government has come out in big way to ensure we improve our breeding herd. For a long time we’ve only had one bull station producing semen in this country. But even with the one we have we’ve added a number of bulls. We want bulls to be stationed; we don’t want bulls to be going round.”

Fishermen, at the Summit, called on government to replicate the dairy, “cool,” initiative in their industry as well to keep them from being exploited by middle-men.

“We are being exploited. If you don’t sell your fish to them or give them your fish at a price of their choice, within no time your fish will go bad,” Dickens Odhiambo, a Beach Management Unit Secretary, said at the summit.

Bett also acknowledged that the counties and national government needed to work out a revised framework where extension services are concerned.

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