The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries in Kenya has kicked-off a sensitization workshop to 37 County Executive Committee (CEC) Members in-charge of Agriculture together with their County Directors of Agriculture to sensitize them on the E-voucher programme.
The National Value Chain Support Program (NVSP) sensitization and briefing workshop is aimed at educating the CECs and CDAs on the E-voucher programme and seek their support in sensitization of farmers and other stakeholders for faster uptake of the subsidy initiative.
The goal of NVSP is to increase the productivity of small holder farmers by supporting them with a wide range of subsidized inputs through an electronic based input management system (E-voucher input system).
According to Principal Secretary State Department for Crop Development and Agricultural Research, Prof Hamadi Boga,, the programme was launched with initial 12 pilot counties (two wards per county) and four value chain crops which include Irish potato, maize, rice and coffee and later expanded to additional 25 counties all of which will be beneficiaries by the long rain season of 2022 with an additional two value chains of green grams and sorghum.
Farmer registration
“Within these counties, the programme has registered farmers in 2-4 wards. In order to achieve countrywide reach, NVSP has launched continuous farmer registration starting with three pilot counties of Meru, Nyandarua and Nandi,” added Boga.
The PS noted that a scaling up endeavor within all the 47 counties is currently underway to up the number of wards and their priority value chains. He mentioned some of the major benefits of the E-voucher input subsidy which include; increasing productivity through affordable inputs hence fast tracking the implementation of the agenda 1 of the Big Four agendas of food security and nutrition.
He added that the e-voucher use has also broadened the range of inputs available to farmers to include basal and top-dressing fertilizers, lime, certified seeds, agro-chemicals currently and in future financial services and soil testing services.
Other benefits include growth of the micro and the small enterprises as they supply farmers with subsidized inputs, promotion of the use of genuine inputs, tracking of subsidy inputs use, building of national farmer profile and enhancing accuracy of the targeting mechanism.
