Bomet First Lady Sally Barchok led a delegation from Bomet County to benchmark on Elgeyo Marakwet’s agricultural advancements.
The First Lady noted that Elgeyo Marakwet had made great strides in agricultural production that Bomet could learn from.
“You are our sister County and one of the best Counties to learn from and that is why we chose to come here,” she said.
Mrs Barchok said she was particularly interested in women empowerment through agriculture and wanted to learn from similar initiatives in Elgeyo Marakwet.
“Iam told one of your greatest achievements is in the area of women empowerment through the rearing of indigenous chicken which Iam very passionate about,” she said.
Mrs Barchok said she was impressed by the Elgeyo Marakwet indigenous chicken value chain which she noted had achieved a 95% survival rate for chicken reared across the County.
“We were asking ourselves how this is possible knowing that your County is one of the coldest counties. So we want to tap into your secret,” she added.
The First Lady who was accompanied by Bomet County agricultural officials led by Agriculture CEC Rosa Bett also visited two groups in the County that rear indigenous chicken for commercial purposes.
Elgeyo Marakwet Agriculture CEC Edwin Seroney who hosted the First Lady and her team noted that the success of agricultural ventures in the County was largely because of a hard working populace.
“Our citizens are very hard working people and they embrace every agricultural initiative we introduce to them and this has made our work very easy,” he said.
Seroney noted that under the Agricultural Sector Development Support Program (ASDSP), the County had engaged 68 groups in the indigenous chicken value chain, 53 in dairy cow and 53 in Irish potato growing.
“All these value chains are doing very well and we are now in the phase of developing business plans for them and exposing them to markets through exposure tours,” he said.
Present during the visit were the County Secretary representative, Mr Kiplagat Tingos, Acting Agriculture Chief Officer, James Wekesa, and technical officers from both counties.
