Government waived sexed semen to double milk production, says CS Linturi

Kapsabet

Saturday December 9, 2023

KNA by Geoffrey Satia

Nandi will be among the first counties to benefit from government waived sexed semen technology expected to improve production in the region.

 Agriculture and Livestock Development CS Mithika Linturi speaking during a visit to the area said the government had finalized plans to give out 20,000 sexed semen to local farmers at the price less than Sh3,000 by the end of this year.

Linturi said the government was committed to an ambitious programme to double the production of milk in the country within the next two to three years.

“By the end of the year, or before the 10th January next year, we’ll start giving out what you hear as sexed semen to our farmers,” the CS assured the farmers gathered at Kaimosi Farmers Training College (FTC) during Farmers Field Day and Exhibition.

He said the government was giving out the semen to the livestock farmers as a Christmas gift.

“I was told you buy this sexed semen between Sh6,000 to Sh8,000, but we are working hard in the next two, three weeks to ensure you’ll be buying this semen at less than Sh3,000,” he said.

In addition, the CS revealed that the farmers should also be ready for embryo transfer technology, where we are choosing both the semen from superior bull and the eggs from a superior to be fertilized, where the embryo is introduced in a surrogate cow.

The CS said the embryo transfer breeding technology to be launched soon, is expected to give farmers high quality cow breeds in a shorter time, instead of waiting for generational breeding to realise superior offspring.

Linturi was impressed with the state of the art multimillion Nandi Dairy Cooperative Factory located at Kabiyet township in Mosop Sub-County, adding that dairy farmers should ensure they produce enough milk to feed the processor with capacity of 200,000 litres of milk in a day.

“We do not want it to be a white elephant project, we want you to produce more milk so that during value addition you should be having enough milk,” the CS said referring to the milk processing plant he visited two weeks ago.

He however challenged the Nandi dairy farmers to feed their animals with the right combination of feeds and enough of it, so that they can produce sufficient milk.

The CS asked the farmers to take short courses at the Kaimosi FTC so that they learn how they can give their dairy animals balanced feeds and also acquire general farming routine practices.

The Head of Public Service and Chief of Staff, Felix Koskei, who was also present regretted that people are no longer taking agricultural courses seriously as it used to 20-30 years ago.

“We have lost expertise in farming, we don’t see people going to school or people going for training. People practice farming the way they have seen in the farm, the way parents do it or the way they read in newspapers,” Koskei revealed.

He challenged farmers to bring their farm employees for short courses at Kaimosi FTC so they get basic farming knowledge.

Koskei who is the board chair at Kaimosi FTC revealed that they are working closely with the County Government of Nandi and National Government to ensure the institute becomes the centre of agriculture knowledge in the region.

 Nandi Governor Stephen Sang challenged the youths to embrace agriculture knowledge at Kaimosi FTC for self-employment and improving future food security.

Courtesy; KNA