Four million farmers registered in drive to attain food security

Data from the Ministry of Interior shows over four million farmers have been registered in the drive. [Interior Ministry]

The government has listed more than four million farmers in the ongoing national household farmer registration exercise.

The registration aimed at establishing a national database of all farmers was launched in January and is being spearheaded by assistant chiefs, chiefs, and assistant county commissioners.

Some of the details sought include a farmer's identity, profile, location, crop acreage, and fertiliser requirements.

The information is to enable the government provide targeted interventions including subsidies and other farm inputs for improved productivity and profitability and attainment of food security.

Giving an update on the registration status on Wednesday, May 31, the Interior Ministry said the exercise had bore promising results, with each of the eight regions recording varied levels of progress.

"Following a data scrubbing exercise, which involved the correction of incomplete and erroneous information as well as deletion of duplicate datasets, a total of 4,287,713 farmers have been registered in the past five months, with Rift Valley accounting for 1,241,482 farmers, followed by Eastern region with 888,675," said the ministry in a statement.

Nyanza has recorded 663,438 farmers, Western (614,146), Central (591,776), Coast (235,779), North Eastern (44,679) while Nairobi has registered 6,738 farmers.

"A total of 16 counties have filed a significantly high number of registered farmers, with all of them crossing the one hundred thousand mark," the Ministry noted.

Nakuru is leading with 230,787 farmers followed by Bungoma (203,310) and Kakamega (203,173) with low turnout being witnessed in Isiolo, Mombasa, Marsabit, Wajir, and Garissa counties.

"However, the variation in progress is also attributable to other inflexible factors particularly the size and population of the county as well as its major socio-economic practices," Interior Ministry said.