40 per cent of harvest goes to waste, says Felix Koskei

What you need to know:

  • Mr Koskei said a new system of managing after-harvest reserves was desperately needed to ensure sustained food security

Between 30 and 40 per cent of harvested food crop goes to waste every season, causing persistent shortage, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei has said.

Mr Koskei said a new system of managing after-harvest reserves was desperately needed to ensure sustained food security. He said modern storage, roads and general infrastructure, especially in food production areas, must be revived if the country was to prevent perennial lack of food.

CHANGE SCENARIO

“Most of the farmers’ produce end up being wasted and we must change this scenario,” he said during an inter-governmental meeting on agriculture at the Mombasa Continental Resort yesterday. He also accused agricultural extension officers of “grave laxity”.

“They are sleeping in the villages unconcerned, unbothered.” The three-day meeting brings together 47 governors, their agricultural officers and the ministry officials to discuss how to improve food production at county level.