• The projects to be implemented in the areas include aquaculture, crop production and dairy farming with a view of increasing the overall food productivity.
• Similarly, the programme aims to capacity built youths and women in agriculture to grow their agribusiness enterprises and improve livelihoods.
Food, and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has rolled out a Sh700 million program in the lake region aimed at enhancing agricultural production within the region.
FAO will support counties within the Lake Region Economic Bloc individually.
The projects to be implemented in the areas include aquaculture, crop production and dairy farming with a view of increasing the overall food productivity.
Similarly, the program aims to capacity built youths and women in agriculture to grow their agribusiness enterprises and improve livelihoods.
FAO country representative to in charge of programs Hamisi Williams said the organization is keen on working with the counties to strengthen agricultural systems in order to realize food security.
Hamisi noted that the agricultural program is intended to build the resilience of farmers for them to survive the growing effects of climate change.
"FAO is in a journey to support the counties realise food sufficiency through helping farmers build resilience that will enable them survive the underlying climatic challenges over a long period of time," he said.
He was speaking during a graduation ceremony for over fifty extension officers at Tom Mboya Labour College in Kisumu.
The officers trained through the Farm Business School (FBS) project, are expected to implement specific programs, focusing on aggregation and collective marketing.
"We developed the FBS to empower farmers on how to make their farming ventures more profitable while responding to the marker demand. The school enables farmers to improve their knowledge, change their attitude and enhance their skills needed for farm commercialization," Hamisi added.
He noted that the farming communities here had a few setbacks in the matters of food production and supply during the pre-Covid-19 period, the rising water levels of Lake Victoria resulting in flooding and many other epidemics affected their livelihoods.
During the Covid-19 pandemic with the lockdown and reduced productivity in most basic needs food remained a highly demanded commodity.
FAO, he added saw the need to join forces with county government of Kisumu and Migori in order to build resilience of famers against floods and Covid-19 impacts though the Farmers Business Schools.
Since February 2021, Young farmers (women and youth) and county extension officers were trained on select value chains namely; aquaculture, local poultry, vegetable and soya beans.
The FBS program is changing the mindset towards aggregated productions, value addition and strategic marketing.
“To the graduands, today you are joining ranks of a very special group that has had a training (for 21 days). This is in compliance with the requirements set by the global Field Schools support forum. You are a blend of county extension officers, private extension and community business coaches. Hongera!”.
He further told the graduants “ With the skills you’ve gained through this program and the demand for human food and animal feed, you are slowly and surely entrenching yourselves in decent and rewarding jobs. The solution is in scaling up farmer Business programs and leveraging on block chain technology”.
The FAO official who was flanked by Kisumu county Agriculture executive Gilchrist Okuom, said his organisation was committed to supporting county governments eradicate the migratory African Armyworms that have so far affected 33 counties leaving hundreds of farmers counting losses.
On his part, Okuom said the trained extension officers will play integral role in disseminating knowledge to farmers touching on poultry, aquaculture and green leaf vegetables value chain in order to ensure food sufficiency.
"We want to propagate the right skills and capacity built our farmers so that they can grow their yields," he said.