Laikipia County, Soy Afric Deepen Discussions On Food Security In The Area
Laikipia County governor Joshua Irungu, his deputy Reuben Kamuri with Soy Afric officials during their consultative meeting
By Our Correspondent
Worth Noting:
- “Soya is better yielding, with a higher income bracket, than its more traditional counterpart maize which is less adaptable to climate change and fetches a lower price in the market,” the county boss observed.
- The governor tasked the team to expound on the following key areas of the partnership; To establish an MOU with Soy Afric to provide clear guidelines for collaboration and doing business in a week, The school feeding programme, budget, training, logistics, storage and donor compliance for the program and To identify market opportunities, profit margins, constraints, and challenges and provide recommendations and strategies to introduce farming of soya in the county.
Laikipia County is partnering with Soy Afric in an ECDE school feeding program that seeks to feed 30,000 school kids with one nutritious meal daily to address the constraints faced by many families in the county, especially during this dry season.
Area Governor Joshua Irungu together with his Deputy Reuben Kamuri hosted a team from Soy Afric, at the County Offices in Nanyuki led by the founder and Managing Director Cornelius Muthuri, the General Manager David Muriuki, and the Head of Sales and Marketing Dr Allan Mugambi where they discussed the issue.
Soy Afric runs school feeding and relief programmes in 15 counties including Kiambu, Murang’a, West Pokot and Marsabit.
It works with several donor and international organisations such as the UN, Red Cross, Feed the Children, AMREF, Doctors Worldwide, and USAID.
The county is seeking to introduce alternative cash crops such as soya which will help with wealth and job creation, food security as well as mitigate cross-border banditry and cattle rustling in the county which has worsened due to the increasing period of drought and lack of food.
“Soya is better yielding, with a higher income bracket, than its more traditional counterpart maize which is less adaptable to climate change and fetches a lower price in the market,” the county boss observed.
The governor tasked the team to expound on the following key areas of the partnership; To establish an MOU with Soy Afric to provide clear guidelines for collaboration and doing business in a week, The school feeding programme, budget, training, logistics, storage and donor compliance for the program and To identify market opportunities, profit margins, constraints, and challenges and provide recommendations and strategies to introduce farming of soya in the county.
Other areas of focus will be; To review the current state of the value chain for the soya, availability or Supply chain of suitable seed varieties and planting materials and give farmers accurate information to guide farmers in farm husbandly processes.
The team will.also look for possible ways for domestic commercialization of the cash crops outside international markets like aggregation centres, contract farming with local manufacturers, organisations, hospitals, farmers and milers which include possibilities of farmers selling their produce to schools for the feeding programmes, millers, animal feeds.
Further, the team will be expected to develop strategies to produce required volumes to ensure economies of scale and safeguard the interest of all stakeholders involved in the program, and aggregation. They will also explore ways of Introducing a feeding programme in hospitals to supplement nutrition and boost the recovery of patients, explore ways of setting up a satellite manufacturing branch of Soy Afric in Rumuruti’s special economic zone and introduce soya farming in the county.
The crop requires little water mainly during germination and flowering, hence more tolerant to drought with the beans fetching good market prices and having many uses thus, they will serve as an alternative to plants that are traditionally produced in the County.
Also under the mandate of the team is to integrate soya farming with the ongoing projects of introducing warehouse receipting.
This will serve as collateral to credit and hence ease access to credit.
Also expected to be worked on is developing strategies to offer sensitization and support towards farmer groups planning to adopt soya farming and encouraging the adoption of good agricultural practices.
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