Busia County To Partner With Faulu Bank To Improve On Incomes
Busia County Government in partnership with Faulu Microfinance Bank join hands to improve the incomes of small scale traders and farmers through the Kenya Livestock Commercialization Project –KeLCop.
The six year project funded by the Government of Kenya –GoK, International Fund for Agriculture Development-IFAD among others aim at contributing to the government’s agriculture transformation agenda of increasing rural small-scale farmers’ incomes, food and nutrition security.
In an introductory meeting led by the County Executive Committee Member for Trade, Cooperatives, Industries and Investment, Omuse Olakachuna, partners pledged to undertake capacity building, trainings and creation of linkages to have a win-win situation.
“The goal here is to improve the income of our small scale farmers and other rural people as we focus on food security. We have seen groups or cooperatives being given money; share it out among themselves and disappear” said Olakachuna as he emphasized the need to train farmers on value addition, book keeping, leadership and financial management for the projects sustainability.
The CEC said its time for farmers to move from local to commercial way of farming and look for more open financial networks to reach out to more groups and small scale farmers.
On misuse of finances by beneficiaries of the project, the County Director for Livestock, David Mukabane said they have introduced an e-voucher system where they won’t get in contact with cash.
Martin Kirimi, the Relationship Manager at Faulu Bank assured of a financial literature curriculum that they have put in place for their clients to walk with them from the micro level all the way tomicro and small enterprises.
“We have always managed to walk with our people at group levels and grew with them to be sustainable and to be able to deliver economically” said Kirimi noting that they will also be leveraging on the partnership to give the clients the opportunity to interact and do business together.
KeLCoP will have three inter-related components which include the production level, supporting participation of small holders in the value chain, ensuring project coordination, implimentation support, improvement of the institutional and policy environment and finance monitoring and evaluation aspects of the project.
The project will be implimented in four Sub counties; Amukura East-Teso South, Elugulu in Butula, Nambuku Namboboto in Samia and Bunyala North in Bunyala with over 10000 house holds to benefit.
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