THE government has allocated Sh100 million to operationalise the Kenya school of Agriculture headquartered in Nyeri.
Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri on Friday said the school will also receive equipment through the ministry’s ‘Enable Youth’ programme.
“And this year, it will admit the first batch of trainees for certificate and diploma courses in agribusiness and general agriculture,” he said.
The CS called on parents to take advantage of the facility and enrol their children to pursue vocational training.
The youths in the country, he said, need more certificate and diploma programmes so that they can be self-reliant.
“This and other support programmes will continue to be implemented in line with the President’s Big Four Agenda to achieve 100 per cent food and nutritional security,” he said.
The Sh4 billion college’s main campus has been set up at Wambugu Agricultural Training Center in the outskirts of Nyeri town and stands on a 30-acre piece of land.
Satellite campuses are located in Thika in Kiambu county and Ainakboi, in Uasin Gishu while it will have a resource centre in Nakuru.
Kiunjuri spoke during the official opening of the Central Kenya National Show at Kabiruini showground in Nyeri town on Friday.
The school’s core mandate will be the training of extension officers so that they can, in turn, educate farmers on basic farming techniques.
It will also provide training to farmers on agro-processing, value addition and value chain analysis.
The CS also said the government has delivered 323 milk coolers with a capacity of 3,000 litres each across 36 counties in the country, to farmers through their cooperatives. Nyeri county has received 19 milk coolers.
He said this will enable farmers to store milk in safe conditions and receive better prices for them.
He said despite the climate change challenges, farmers in Central have embraced and expanded land under cultivation to a total of 110,000 hectares.
This, he added, has improved their earnings. The horticultural production earned small scale farmers in the region Sh3.6 billion compared to last year’s 3.3 billion, Kiunjuri said.
(edited by O. Owino)
