The modern pest control method has helped improve yields in Machakos County, Machakos County Government’s extension officer Muthui Mutisya has said.
Mutisya said through the Integrated Pest Management method, farmers had increased yields from five bags per acre to around fifteen bags.
“We are conducting a lot of farmers’ training on good agricultural practices for all crops, maize included across the county,” Mutisya said.
He addressed reporters during their field visit to farmers in Masii, Mwala subcounty on Tuesday.
Integrated Pest Management entails mixing several pest control approaches including pesticides, farm hygiene and traps.
Mutisya said though the holdings in most of the farms were small ranging between 2 – 2.5 acres, farmers still insist on planting maize and other food crops.
“With enough rains, we normally get up to 15 bags per acre. The challenge is that rains are erratic and amounts are also few. We experience between 300 and 600mm per year,” he said.
He encouraged farmers to construct lots of water harvesting structures and have water tanks in their homesteads and farms.
Mutisya also encouraged the residents to protect the environment through afforestation and good agricultural practices.
“We do a lot of terracing and ridges to ensure we get enough water,” Mutisya said.
He said maize yields had at some time gone down with farmers harvesting even up to five bags per acre due to fall army worm invasion. The modern method of pest control changed the situation.
He said the situation had been worsened by the fact that most farmers couldn’t afford chemicals from local shops and agro vets.
“One or two years back, we had intervention from the County Government of Machakos. We gave farmers free chemicals to control armyworms. It’s an activity that can’t be sustained,” Mutisya said.
“The county government can’t give farmers chemicals throughout the year. You find farmers can’t afford the chemicals and don’t spray their crops,” Mutisya said.
He encouraged farmers to adopt new technology. "We will conduct more training and demonstrations.”
Catherine Nzilani, a farmer, said the new technology had relieved them from the traditional methods they had struggled with to control pests and diseases in their farms for ages.
“We used ash to control pests before we adopted the modern technology,” Nzilani said.
Nzilani said it was hectic to check each plant and apply ash to those invaded by worms.
“Modern technology is better. It’s easier to spray crops as opposed to suppressing pests using ash. We are happily harvesting good yields,” she said.
