Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi acknowledged the receipt of a Ksh650 million grant from the Swedish government aimed at funding the process of registering farmers in the country.
Linturi, who spoke during the launch of phase two of the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS) in Nairobi noted that the funds will help to actualize the process with a target of over four million farmers nationwide.
In his speech, CS Linturi noted that data collected and availed in the database will help to ensure even distribution of farm inputs in a more direct way.
KIAMIS, Linturi noted, will help to create a database for all farmers and subsequently aid in future planning activities in the sector.
The registration will be implemented through a partnership between the government and the United Nations organ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
Through the registration process, the government will gather details ranging from the acreage of land held by the farmers, the location of the farms and projected harvests from the farmers.
"KIAMIS is basically a digital platform with various components that enable us to organize and put our data together and then use the data to implement various farmer support services," Linturi noted in the meeting.
The registration process was announced by President William Ruto as part of his government's agenda for revitalizing the agriculture sector in the country.
While leading in the process of registering as a farmer, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua affirmed that the process would help to weed out middlemen in the production chain who prevented the maximization of earnings by farmers.
He noted that the database would help to inform the government's interventions of supporting farmers with inputs, more so in the fertilizer program expected to be rolled out across the nation.
Since the inauguration of the Kenya Kwanza administration, President Ruto has reiterated his commitment to maximizing food production in a bid to mitigate the effects of food insecurity and perennial drought experienced in various parts of the country.
The government has since entered deals with multinational companies in a bid to avail cheap fertilizer, among other farming inputs for the Kenyan farmer.
