More than 80,000 coffee farmers have registered for the government’s Sh1 Billion coffee farm inputs subsidy programme launched early this year.
Administered by New Kenya Planters Cooperative Union the programme seeks to help farmers’ access fertilisers and chemicals at subsidised prices, and thus shielding them against the skyrocketing farm input prices.
Timothy Mirugi, New KPCU managing director said, Government is waiving 40 per-cent of the total cost of the fertiliser and pesticides and the individual farmer required to pay 60 per cent before supplied with the input.
He further said that the subsidy programme being piloted in Nyeri, Murang’a and Kirinyaga counties has so far benefited 55,617 coffee farmers.
However, the number of farmers interested in the subsidised farm inputs seems to have grown at a faster rate compared to 15,639 farmers who have applied for low-cost loans from the Sh3 billion cherry revolving fund. The revolving fund was launched in January 2020. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, a total of 80,087 farmers have so far been registered for the programme out of the targetted 82,000 farmers.
So far 13 counties have registered for the programme, with Mt Kenya counties leading in terms of farmers, who have expressed interests in applying for the farm inputs.
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