Over 2000 farmers in Ilmotiok ward, Narok West Sub County have benefited from a smart farming training sponsored by Farm to Market Alliance (FtMA) which is working with the county government to boost farming in the area.
Narok County Chief Officer in charge of Environment, Water and Sanitation Obadiah Ronoh said one of the key things that the residents have learnt is to mitigate climate change and increase crop production through proper crop farming.
Ronoh who spoke during a farmer’s field day held at Ilmotiok trading centre encouraged farmers to put up tree nurseries in every ward to improve forest cover in the county.
“We will continue working with this organization to ensure that the residents plant more trees but in the right way. It is not enough to plant a tree, we also need to conserve the trees,” he said.
The Chief Officer revealed that the county will soon get Sh100 million from donors to help mitigate climate change which will be disbursed evenly to the 30 wards in the county.
He revealed that 70 percent of the money will be put in projects agreed to by the committees in the specific wards while 30 percent of the budget will be put in projects that crisscross the wards.
“The former county assembly (second assembly) passed a County Climate Change Act that was signed into law by former governor Samuel Tunai, that will enable us to deal with climate change issues,” he said.
FtMA representative Antony Nyongesa said their main aim is to help the county government run its programmes in the right way that benefits the farmers.
“We teach them how to manage the environment. For example, we have been training them to plant trees that are friendly to the environment like grevillea and fruit trees,” he said.
He observed that some trees like bluegums draw a lot of water hence should be planted at an isolated part far from where the crops are planted.
Joyce Kemboi, the Ilmotiok ward administrator said the training has helped the farmers to produce more crops in a smaller area.
FtMA programme is sponsored by the World Food Programme and started operations in Narok County in the year 2017 to 2025.
