The Taita Taveta county government plans to revive non-performing cooperatives to empower residents economically.
Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Irrigation executive Erickson Kyongo revealed that only 13 out of 79 registered cooperatives are active, prompting the need for more sensitisation to revive the dormant ones.
He cited lack of commitment by members, power wrangles, lack of patience and loan defaulting as the major reasons why many cooperative societies collapsed.
Speaking during a consultative meeting with officials from agriculture and cooperative departments at Voi, Kyongo said the devolved unit is working on programmes that target to offer support to all cooperatives in the region.
“The government is keen on empowering cooperatives so as to help the members who are mostly farmers. We will provide more technical and financial support to farmers’ cooperatives to strengthen them,” he said on Friday.
He further asked the officials to familiarise themselves and synchronise the roles of cooperatives with agriculture, dairy livestock, poultry and apiculture value chains in the county.
Kyongo said the synergy will promote value addition since most donors prefer working with cooperatives rather than individual farmers.
“We have a role to ensure farmers are protected from exploitation by middlemen. Strong working cooperatives will weed out middlemen who buy farm produce at a throw away prices,” he said.
He advised that farmers should consider joining cooperative societies to have bargaining power and boost their earnings.
The executive pointed out that many farmers have continued suffering huge losses due to poor market prices and exploitation by middlemen.
“Joint bargaining power will ensure that farmers get better prices as well as financial support from financial institutions,” he said.
He insisted on the need to have strengthened extension services at grassroots, including monitoring and evaluation of the societies to ensure continued growth.
“Once we have robust and well-coordinated cooperatives, every farmer will want to join. Let’s join hands in ensuring we reclaim our production glory in the coastal region,” Kyongo added.
Going forward, he said, more efforts will be directed towards promoting livelihoods hence turning around the county’s economy.
