Women and youth groups get machine to produce cattle salt

Women and youth groups from Murang’a county have benefitted from equipment to produce salt for cattle.

The dairy salt and feed ribbon mixers donated by Ahadi Kenya Trust in partnership with Ushiriki Wema and Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency will see the beneficiaries become self-sufficient while providing cheap salt to local farmers.

Farmers depend on the salt to maintain appetite and body weight of their livestock, and encourage them to consume more water, which is necessary for good health and a higher milk production.

The machines will also enable beneficiaries to mix animal feeds and take advantage of the vast local market that depends on products from other counties.

Ahadi Kenya Trust CEO Stanley Kamau said the three machines donated to groups in Kigumo, Kiharu and Mathioya will go a long way into empowering residents and saving them from the cycle of joblessness.

“We will ensure by the end of this week, samples produced by these groups are presented to Kenya Bureau of Standards for approval and certification,” he said.

Once certified, Kamau said the youths and women groups will be able to open shops from where they will sell the products. Youths, he added, will be engaged to help market and sell the products from the shops, further creating more jobs.

“We realised this is an untapped opportunity in Murang’a. Almost every home here has a dairy cow yet we depend on feeds from other places,” he said.

Such initiatives, he pointed out, are the only way to save the youths from alcoholism and reduce the rate of crime.

“We can’t have security if the youths have no money. We cannot talk about education when parents have no funds to pay fees. My appeal is to political leaders to come up with programmes that empower people in the grassroots and for the corporates to support such initiatives,” he said.

Sintoya Kasaine, the chief executive in charge of youths and women empowerment under the Ushirika Wema organisation, said such empowerment programmes are crucial in driving local economies.