By George Munene

East African Breweries Ltd (EABL), has embarked on an initiative seeking out more than 4,000 Homa-Bay County farmers to grow sorghum in the next planting season starting September.

EABL will provide farmers with seeds and other farm inputs at affordable prices to enable them to grow the crop. They will purchase the sorghum from them helping farmers acquire a market and improving their livelihoods.

“We want as many farmers as possible to register with us. This initiative is aimed at enabling farmers who are financially challenged to produce the crop,” said EABL’s Sustainable and Stakeholder Engagement Manager Waithera Mwai during a Wednesday training session for farmers in Homa Bay town.

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The program is being run in conjunction with Sygenta Foundation East Africa, Sight Savers and the Homa Bay County government.

“The main issue affecting our people is unemployment. This project will create self-employment for our farmers and we hope more of them take it up,” said Aguko Juma, Homa-Bay County Executive Member for Agriculture.

Sight Savers representative, Roselyn Olewe, encouraged farmers with disabilities to embrace the project.

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“We are training the farmers to empower them with knowledge on how to grow the crop. I want them to understand that it is a project that can eradicate poverty,” said Olewe.

Sygenta Foundation’s Lucy Kioko told farmers to embrace mechanization to enable them grow sorghum in large scale. The company, she said, would provide linkage to acquisition of mechanization services.