PICTURE: Consignments of Bt seeds
The government is expected to deliver 17 tons of BT cotton seeds to farmers in Busia County on Friday, kicking off President William Ruto’s plan to revive the cotton sector.
A total of 12,000 Kenyans has been registered as cotton farmers on the Kiamis platform, a digital platform that enables the government to register farmers and establish a national central farmers’ database.
Busia is targeting to plant a total of 11,253 acres in the first phase as the government intends to put 42,000 acres of land under cotton production in the county.
This project targets to produce 800kgs of lint and cotton seed cake per acre, translating to more than nine million kilos; three million kilos of lint and six million kilos of cotton seed cake.
Already 82,000 bags of fertilizer have been delivered to the Malaba NCPB depot ready for disbursement to farmers.