President William Ruto on Friday, March 3, launched a new variety of fertiliser that will be available for farmers across the country.
According to Ruto, the fertiliser is said to be soil specific and tailor-made to suit crop nutrient requirements.
With this new variety, different areas in Kenya will have a different blend of fertilisers that fit their needs.
"The fertiliser will help transform agriculture that has suffered from low-quality inputs for many years," Ruto declared.
It will be produced by the Nakuru-based plant, Fertiplant East Africa Ltd, which is expected to produce at least 100,000 metric tonnes of NPK fertilisers annually.
"We will continue catalysing and sustaining inclusive agricultural transformation in the country so as to improve food security and enhance incomes," the president assured.
Notably, Fertiplant is East Africa's first fertiliser granulation plant. In 2017, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, gave the plant Ksh1.3 billion (USD 10 million).
Ruto continuously emphasised his administration's commitment to funding the production sector in the country to help farmers.
He began by subsiding fertlisers from Ksh6,500 to Ksh3,500 for farmers across the country. Through the Ministry of Agriculture, farmers were registered as a way of avoiding cartels.
Meanwhile, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, while speaking in Uasin Gishu County on Friday, March 3, announced that the government was unveiling 7.8 million 50-kilogram bags of fertilisers to farmers through the e-voucher system ahead of the long rains.
"We count on our farmers in fighting the effects of climate change and transforming the lives of Kenyans. As we move from rainfed agriculture, we are expanding farm-hand under irrigation from 540,000 acres to 3.3 million acres by 2026," he stated.
Gachagua launched the Private Sector-Led Agricultural Mechanisation Initiative to facilitate access to machinery services, financial services, and market linkages among others.
