Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi this morning flagged off the first consignment of grain dryers that will be distributed in the larger Rift Valley region. The first batch of 100 grain dryers that will be distributed have a capacity to dry 14 tonnes of maize in two hours.
The government made a commitment to distribute the grain dryers across the country to reduce post-harvest losses caused by aflatoxin among other factors. “This will drastically help our farmers to reduce post-harvest losses leading to increased farmers earnings and a more stable grain reserve for the country.
I urge maize farmers to continue registering in the ongoing farmer registration exercise to benefit from Government subsidy programmes like the subsidized fertilizer to enhance food and nutrition security in our country,” said Linturi.
The CS was speaking at Ziwa NCPB depot in Soy Constituency in Uasin Gishu County where a demonstration was conducted to farmers on how maize will be dried using the mobile dryers to achieve the desired moisture levels. He later continued with the distribution in Nandi County.
The Ministry of Agriculture has said the country is expecting a bumper harvest this year of between 35 million to 40 million 90kg bags.
