Off the wire
• Kenyan leader says Nairobi-Naivasha SGR to stimulate economic growth  • S. Sudanese president calls for reconciliation, vows action on ethnic violence  • Spanish stock market rises 0.96 pct on Wednesday  • British FTSE 100 rises 0.31 pct on Wednesday  • Ukraine's pig industry may collapse amid African swine fever: minister  • ICRC calls for ratification of convention for IDPs protection in Africa  • Portugal places 1.25 bln euros in treasury bills  • China welcomes WTO report on U.S. anti-dumping duties on Chinese imports  • Kenya Airways leads Nairobi bourse Wednesday in impressive gain  • Russian research vessel Akademik Tryoshnikov starts scientific Antarctic expedition  
You are here: 　 Home

Kenya establishes 10.5 mln USD fund to purchase livestock in drought-hit areas

Xinhua, October 20, 2016 Adjust font size:

Kenya has established a 10.5 million U.S. dollars fund to purchase livestock in the drought-hit areas, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Willy Bett told journalists in Nairobi that the revolving fund will facilitate ranchers with excess grazing capacity, and livestock traders to take loans at negotiated interest rates to enable them to purchase livestock from drought-hit areas.

"The emergency livestock off-take intervention will target livestock at risk of starvation due to the effects of the ongoing drought," Bett said.

Bett said state-owned Kenya Meat Commission will work with staff from the national government and counties to identify animals for slaughter and processing into corned beef.

Last week, Kenya announced that 1.3 million people in arid and semi arid areas are in urgent need of food aid. The CS said Kenya has sufficient food to feed the entire country.

"The only problem is that distribution and cost of food in the country," he said, adding that the government will begin to distribute food from agricultural rich areas to the drought prone areas, so that everyone with ability to purchase food will be able to access the food.

According to the ministry of agriculture, Kenya will get 34 million bags of maize from the long rains harvest.

"In addition, we anticipate that short rain harvest will add another 7 million bags, bringing our production at par with the consumption levels of 40 million bags annually," Bett said. Endit