The Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System Phase II (KIAMIS), which aims to register farmers and create a national central farmer's database, was launched today by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.
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A digital platform called KIAMIS enables the Ministry to compile and organize farmer data for use as a guide when allocating funding to support all farmers across the 47 counties.
The Kenya Kwanza Government seeks to establish sustainable systems for boosting agricultural productivity, ensuring nutritional security, and ensuring that the costs of essential food items are reasonable, according to Cabinet Secretary (CS) for Agriculture and Livestock Development Mithika Linturi, who spoke at the launch.
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According to Linturi, the Ministry has already used KIAMIS to register farmers in the counties of Nyandarua and Uasin Gishu and to execute the fertilizer subsidy on a trial basis.
The trial's findings, he continued, showed that KIAMIS is competent to help the Ministry implement the sustainable E-subsidy program and deal with some of the problems fertilizer subsidy programs face.
The most significant obstacle the Ministry faces in assisting farmer programs, according to Linturi, is a lack of accountability. According to recent data, she added that there are only 1.3 million authenticated farmers on the country's list of 6.4 million farmers.
To address this issue, the government quickly registered all farmers nationwide through the National Government Administration, which included chiefs, assistant chiefs, and village elders, bringing the total number of farmers to 4.2 million, according to Linturi.
According to Linturi, the Ministry will work with county governments to ensure they have reliable data to distribute the appropriate number of seedlings and fertilizers that farmers need, according to the quantity of land they possess.
The CS advised farmers to purchase the fertilizers after revealing that they had already received them in Kitale, Bomet, and Narok for Sh3,500.
Nevertheless, he revealed that the Ministry had talks with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) team to support them in growing the KIAMIS program. This system assisted them in validating all farmers in a well-known central database.
Carla Mukavi, a member of the FAO team, also stated that her group is prepared to cooperate with the Ministry to provide farmers with the machinery and other resources they need to carry out their agricultural activities.
However, Anna Brandt, the ambassador of Sweden to Kenya, who was also present, declared that now the Swedish government is prepared to assist Kenyan farmers by promoting their goods and instructing them in cutting-edge farming techniques.
According to Brandt, the Swedish government has contributed to the Cabinet US$5.2 million to assist with the instrumentation required to enhance Agricultural production.
With the use of the KIAMIS infrastructure, the Ministries are digitizing the records of the farmers and ensuring the gathering and dissemination of information and data to aid in the centralized decision and regulation.
