8/9/2019 Mumias Farmers Demand Priority in CDF Allocation

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By JOSEPH BARASA

Extreme food and financial pressure hadbeen consistently building up since theearly 1980s against the family of MzeeGerald Waluchio Shikanda from Imanga

village in Mumias Constituency.

By the late 1990s the pressure had alreadytaken a stranglehold on the now expandedfamily that was completely dependent onsugar cane farming which covered threequarters of the familys ten acre piece ofland since the 1970s.

When the Constituency DevelopmentFund (CDF) was introduced in the year2003, Mzee Shikanda says his family hopedit would alleviate their food shortages.

I saw a lot of hope in the CDF becausewe could no longer produce enough food tofeed the family on the quarter piece of landreserved for food crops, he says.

Therefore when the CDF which hadcome as a ray of hope for thousands of the

constituencys residents failed to provide asolution by the year 2007/8 - their angerexploded into a constituency wide outcry.

The immediate victim of the wholesalepublic rage for CDFs failure to provide asolution was the then patron and area MP,

Wycliffe Osundwa who was voted out at the2007 general elections.

Centre for Peace and Democracy(CEPAD), Mumias Coordinator Edward

Wambani says the farmers were so enragedand desperate because of the persistentdelays in payments for the sugarcane theydelivered to Mumias Sugar Company.

They were desperate for an alternativemeans of survival or diversified agriculturalalternatives since they are totally dependenton agriculture, says Mr. Wambani.

Though the MP had done a sterling job in using monies from the fund tobuild magnificent CDF and districtheadquarters, classrooms in schools acrossthe constituency, health facilities amongstother projects nothing had been doneabout the most sensitive of the peoplesneeds, investment in agricultural projectsbetween 2003 to 2007/8.

Despite the constituency being reputedas the leading producer of sugarcane and

home to the largest sugar producingfactory in the country it is also theleading food importer compared toits neighbouring constituencies in

western province.

It is also ranked as one of thepoorest in the national constituencypoverty at number 123 out of 210constituencies according to the2005/6 survey.

Mumias Deputy District Agricultural Officer (DAO) Jacqueline Ongeso says: Mumiasremains a net importer of food from

neighbouring districts like Busia,Bungoma, Kitale and Trans Nzoiabecause of over dependence onsugarcane production.

Ms. Ongeso says that the endresult has been laziness and total

lack of initiatives to venture into diversifiedagricultural activities since the companiesconnected to sugarcane production virtuallydid everything from ploughing of the farmsall the way to harvesting the crops, leadingto heavy deductions before the farmers arepaid their net dues.

A social Audit of the constituencycompleted in 2008/9 established thatagriculture was consistently given a totalblackout in financial allocations fromdevolved funds since 2003.

Though a total of 156 various categoriesof development projects were financedfrom the devolved funds during the periodspanning five years from 2003 to 2008 none of them covered the agriculturalsector.

Development funds which were targetedin the research were the ConstituencyDevelopment Fund (CDF), the ConstituencyBursary Fund (CBF) and the Local

Authorities Transfer Fund (LATF).

The report says despite the strategicposition that the agricultural sectoroccupies in national strategies in povertyeradication, no consideration was givenin setting aside finances to support anyagricultural development project.

Says the report: Agriculture despitebeing the economic mainstay of MumiasConstituency, received neither directfinancial support in all the five years from(2003/4 to 2007/8) from the CDF nor LATFfrom the two local authorities - MumiasMunicipal council and Butere Mumias

County Council.This trend could be interpreted to mean

that the sector has fully matured or isnot a leading priority in the constituency,otherwise neglecting the sector could lead toadverse negative economic consequences,

warns the report.

It is from this background that since lastyear the new CDFC had to go back to thedrawing board. Since then, more than Kshs.2.5 million has been allocated in alreadybludgeoning agricultural diversificationprojects.

According to Benedict Okwako, the CDFC

official in charge of agriculture, by the end

of last year, the CDFC had allocated Kshs. 1million in phase one of a new programmeinvolving the introduction of oil palmproduction in the constituency.

Mr. Okwako says that in collaboration with the Kenya Agricultural ResearchInstitute (KARI), Bukura AgriculturalInstitute, the Ministry of Agriculture andother stakeholders were first trained intechniques of how to tend the oil palmcrops.

So far we have distributed 10, 000 oilpalm seedlings to the farmers. There isa high response and demand from thefarmers because this is what they wanted.In phase two the CDF has allocated Kshs.1.5 million to plant 10, 000 more seedlings,he says.

The CDFC official says that apart fromoil palm production, the local communitieshave already submitted proposals to theCDFC seeking to venture into productionof alternative food and cash crops,especially high value fast maturing cropsthrough green house production and othertechniques.

Mr. Okwako and Ms. Ongeso saythat community leaders have alreadyapproached one of the leading cooking oilmanufacturing firms in the country andagreed that the company would constructa factory to process the oil palm.

We are targeting planting of more than

30, 000 oil palm plants throughout theconstituency in three phases. The plants

will start bearing fruit after two to threeyears. With supplies from these 30, 000plants we will be able to feed the factoryand constantly maintain its productionprocess all year round.

The other areas that the CDF has nowallocated funds is the planting of avocadoseedlings through community groups andeducational institutions, dairy and poultryfarming as well as the construction of afresh produce market whose tenderingprocess has already been completed in

preparation for the construction works.

Mumias farmers demand priority in CDF allocation

Muas CDF: lie bneft o rmrs

www.tisa.or.ke

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