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SPEECH BY THE HON. H.E THE GOVERNOR OF VIHIGA COUNTY

H.E MOSESE. AKARANGA
ON THE OCCASION OF THE OFFICIAL LAUNCHING OF TISSUE
CULTURE BANANA PROJECT
Members of the County Assemblies;
Members of the County Executives;
Distinguished guests;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am pleased to be here to preside over the Launching of the Tissue Culture bananaproject in
the county.
Vihiga County covers an area of 531.0 Km2 with well distributed l average rainfall of
1900mmper annum. This conditions favour a wide range of agricultural projects such as crop
production, Fish Farming, Rabbit keeping, Piggery and Dairy Goat production. Due to our
small land sizes growing maize is uneconomical.
Ladies and Gentlemen
Our economy is predominantly agriculture based, with the agricultural sector directly
accounting for 24 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product and 27 per cent indirectly through
linkages with other sub-sectors. I urge you all to take agriculture seriously due to its enormous
contribution to our economy
The vision of the department of agriculture is to be the leading agent towards the achievement
of food security for all, employment creation, income generation and poverty reduction in the
county. It is on this grounds that I have deemed it feasible to invest in banana production in
order to contribute to this vision.
Ladies and gentlemen
The Tissue culture Banana project is important. The main objective is to provide farmers with
clean planting materials, free from diseases and varieties that are high yielding. These
materials have been developed by our research institutions in order to boost production. This
is meant to increase agricultural productivity and output.
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Ladies and Gentlemen
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Our county is a net importer of virtually all kinds of foodstuff. In order to reduce on this, we
have embarked on the banana project with the aim of starting an agro based processing
industry, create of employment, for food security and Economic Growth. It is our desirethat
the project which is commercially oriented will ensure that the economy of the county grows,
the livelihood of our people is improved and poverty levels reduced.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The county government has invested Kshs22 Million in the Tissue culture Banana project.
The project is being implemented in the 25 wards. So Far the following achievements
2 Lath houses have been constructed. One in Sabatia Sub County and the other one in
Luanda sub county.
42,000 Tissue culture bananas are in the nursery(12,000 in Hamisi, 23,000 in Sabatia
and 8,000 in Luanda) and as soon as the current stock is freed from the nursery to
create space, the remaining 53,000 Tissue culture banana plantlets will be availed
forhardening. Today we are flagging of the fast batch of TCB Bananas that are ready
for planting and the rest will be distributed to the farmers in due course,
Ladies and gentlemen
The project is organized to run on commercial village approach. Every ward has been
organized to have 4 producer groups which make up one commercial group. The commercial
group is meant to help farmers market the Banana produce collectively in order to benefit
from economies of scale.The commercial group will determine the price of bananas and
reduce exploitation of farmers by brokers.
So far the following has been achieved:-
25 commercial groups have been formed and 100 producer groups in total.
9800 farmers have been mobilized, sensitized and trained.
40 farmers have been identified per Ward to Bulk the bananas as a source of clean
planting materials and in Total more than 10,000 Farmers will be beneficiaries within
the first Year.
The planting Holes are ready
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Ladies and Gentlemen
In This year the project will achieve 285acres of Bananas and our Target is to achieve 3000
acres of Bananas. If this is done we expect to push our incomes from Kshs 40,000 to at
least 250,000 per acre by 2017. The remaining activity is to build the capacity of
farmers in Banana production along the value chain in order for this gains to be
realized.
Ladies and Gentlemen
As I conclude, I want to assure you that the County government is ready to commit the
required resources to spur Agriculture growth.
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Thank you.