The Murang’a county government has launched a programme to help youth get soft loans for dairy farming.
The One Youth One Cow project will enable young people buy hybrid dairy cows through the Murang’a County Creameries, an umbrella co-operative for more than 36 dairy saccos.
Kenya’s potential to produce milk and other dairy products has largely remained untapped, and Governor Mwangi Wairia’s initiative should be encouraged, and possibly replicated in other counties.
The face of the average farmer in Kenya is changing. Today’s farmer is younger and readily embraces technology.
No longer is it the case that farming is left to retirees who have exhausted their most productive years and settled down to subsistence production.
New apps and technology platforms are being developed almost daily, linking farmers to markets and providing crucial information.
This has rapidly taken the place of agriculture extension officers who had disappeared from the counties due to poor management of the sector.
County governments now have a real opportunity to revive this important service, so that the young people taking up farming increase their odds of success and don’t abandon it in frustration.
Kenya, with its rich land and consistent rainfall, can become a dairy production country, supplying other less-endowed regions and putting money into the pockets of its young farmers.
Quote of the day: “What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.” — Austrian neurologist and the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud died on September 23, 1939.