Homa Bay County Department of Agriculture through the National Agricultural Value Chain Development Project (NAVCDP) engaged the residents of the County in a Public Participation exercise to sensitize and inform them about the project.
The exercise kicked off with the technical project officers giving an overview of the project as outlined in the project implementation manual including; the project development objective and goals, the scope of the project, community institutions that will be engaged by the project and key project investments in the County.
The five year (2023-2027) world bank funded project is domiciled in the State Department of Agriculture and cordinated by the National Project Coordination Unit (NPCU) and County Project Coordination Unit (CPCU).
While presiding over the exercise, the County Project Coordinator, Mr. Henry Nzinga said, “The aim of the Project is to increase market participation and value addition for target farmers in select value chains.”
"Homa Bay is one of the 33 Counties implementing the Project that will operate in all the 40 wards." Said Nzinga
He added that the Project Intends to support the small scale farmers with the intention of transitioning them from being subsistence to commercial farmers for improved livelihood.
This will be undertaken through 5 value Chains of Dairy, Cotton, Coffee, Rice and Bananas.
He further revealed that the project will engage the communities through various Community Project Implementation Structures which include; Community Driven Development Committees (CDDCs), Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs), Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) and Farmer Led Irrigation Development Committees (FLID).
The main investments that the project intends to undertake include; establishment and running of demonstration farms, providing grants to farmers SACCOs to enable them operate and loan members effectively, undertaking investments in; agricultural input supply, value addition and processing, aggregation centers and physical markets and establishment, rehabilitation, upgrading and equipping of irrigation facilities.
The Coordinator concluded by intimating that, "the indicators for monitoring the project will be measured by the number of farmers reached with agricultural assets/services under the project (of which 50% are female farmers), percentage increase in farmers selling more than 50% of their produce in the market as well as percentage increase in farmers selling produce in value added form (both on farm and off farm)".
The activity was held in fulfilment of the requirements by the Intergovernmental Participation Funding Agreement and also in line with Governor Wanga's commitment to engage County residents in development projects.
The sessions moderated by Officers from the Governor's Service Delivery Unit saw Presentations from the technical offices from the CPCT before engaging in an open plenary session where participants gave their views and asked questions.
Various stakeholders including officers from the County Government of Homa Bay, Project officials, value chain actors among other representatives from ward clusters attended the exercise that engaged over 500 residents.
