Avocado farmers in Kisii now have a reason to smile following the Tuesday commissioning of a new processing plant at the Agricultural Training College in Kisii.
British High Commissioner Jane Marriott and Kisii County Governor Simba Arati who commissioned the plant said the farmers would be realizing the full benefits through the delivery of their fruits for processing at the factory.
Construction works of the plant were done by Kisii County but leased out to an investor to carry out operations.
Marriott said the smallholder avocado farmers were the real winners in the deal between the County and the investor.
"This processing plant is not about creating a market but also enhancing livelihoods, extending information and helping tackle climate change, a critical challenge of our time," she said.
Kisii is one of the seven counties in the country where the UK government has taken a special interest in committing funds for deliberate investments that are geared towards improving the livelihoods of the residents.
They both rallied the farmers to scale up crop production so as to capitalize on the new plant.
Marriott observed that the factory would now help wean the middlemen off and leave the farmers to enjoy the fruits of their hard labour.
Increased yields, said Arati, means more income for the farmers and thus improved standards of living.
"With this commissioning comes the caution to our farmers to stop frittering away their crop to brokers who have been exploiting them anyway," said the County boss.
The UK government has been supporting avocado production in the region through the Sustainable Urban Development (SUED) program.
SUED works with local institutional authorities at the county and municipal levels to design and implement urban economic development plans.
The urban economic plans integrated market-based approaches into the county's integrated plans emphasising the potential of value chain development.
With SUED’s support municipalities have learned how to assimilate regional economic corridor development initiatives into County urban economic planning.
In Kisii, the program continues to leverage the County on the value chain among the rural folk.
The programme further provides technical assistance to support municipalities to develop and implement investment promotion strategies that draw in investment including public-private partnerships (PPPs).
Arati during a joint press briefing spoke of plans to provide additional one million seedlings of has variety to the farmers to boost production and thus feed into the larger production trail of the value chain.
The governor, however, asked Srinivas Mlacherla the investor pay farmers on time to keep their hopes in farming alive.
John Kashangaki, SUED team leader said the UK government would further fund the management of wastes to make fertilizer and briquettes.