Kwale farmers get one stop Mkulima shop

By Alloys Musyoka

Kwale farmers have every reason to smile after establishment of a one stop shop at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Organization center.

As the region experiences El-nino rains, the center will provide farmers with best satified seeds, pesticides and fertilizer.

The Mkulima shop at Matuga Kalro center will ensure farmers in the area have farm inputs in a bid to practice sustainable farming and get enough harvest.

Deputy Director General Crops Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization Felister Makini said that farmers in the area have been buying seeds that fail to germinate or even give poor harvest.

The Mkulima shop, she said, is meant to solve such problems.

“Many farmers have suffered after buying seeds that either fail to germinate or its production level is poor,” she said.

She said that the seeds at Mkulima Shop offered to farmers are satified by Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service.

“These are the seeds that research shows that they can grow and produce as well as be disease resistant just to ensure farmers are assured of doing farming that is profitable,” she said.

Dr. Felister urged farmers to make use of the Shop in ensuring they don’t feel victim of fake seeds that fail to germinate.

In Kwale she said that farmers practice maize, citrus and cowpeas farming among others.

Some of the farmers in Kwale led by Bintiali Hamisi Ngare said that the shop will go a long way in helping them in farming practices.

“This shop will help us a lot because we have been using a lot of money looking for satified seeds for planting but now we have them here. We also have been buying seeds that ends up not germinating leave along expecting harvest,’ she said

She said that the shop will help many farmers in the area and called on other farmers to make use of it.

The farmers will also be able to get advice on which seeds to plant for each season which according to Ngare is a big milestone to them.

Ali Musa, also a farmer, said that the shop will change their way of operations and save them from middlemen who sell seeds that are not satified.

He said that they have in the past incurred losses due to buying farm inputs that are not satified.