The Government will carry out a nationwide registration of farmers and livestock keepers alongside the country’s national census in the next two years.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett confirmed that they had already prepared tools for the upcoming census in 2019 and shared information with the Kenya National Bureau of Statistic (KNBS).
“This approach will help the government develop an organized system of knowing the number of farmers who require fertilizers and price subsidies, other farming needs and the number of their acreage,” Bett said.
For the first time in the history of Kenya, the ministry of agriculture with KNBS will carry out a census that will be reflected in the 2019 National Housing and Population Census Report, he added.
The CS was sharing with the press, the progress on preparations of a twin event – Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (Godan) Conference and the Africa-Agritec Exhibition which will be held concurrently at the Kenya International Convention Centre (KICC) on June 14th -16th .
Bett confirmed that even as the government prepares for the census, the ministry has started registering farmers and that so far 2 million growers have been registered.
The registration, the CS added, will equally help in weeding out cartels and middlemen that every year swindles farmers.
He emphasised on the importance of factual records in the agricultural sector saying that a new department has been set up within the ministry to help improve data gathering and storage.
“Lack of real data has always made it difficult for the government to help farmers in terms of allocating them required resources especially during drought period because of the unknown numbers. With the new techniques in mobile phone communication, we are also planning to use mobile apps to reach farmers,” he noted.
Through the census, the CS said the government will not only be able to redesign ways of dealing with the farmers but will also address a lot of other issues affecting the farming community.
“Many are times we get real time data from international organizations such as the World Bank, European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) yet the information has been sourced from us. We have not been good content developers despite the surrounding endowed environment,” Bett admitted.
