Agriculture as it is known by many people is the backbone of the country. No one can survive without depending on agricultural produce.
Western parts of Kenya including Bungoma,Trans-Nzoia, Kakamega and Busia Counties depend greatly on maize growing, as it is the major staple food crop in the region.
Maize, apart from being used as food for human beings, the stalks are used to feed animals like cattle.
According to Jeremy Nalwenge, a farmer from Kimwanga in Bumula Sub-County, the maize stalks help to increase milk productivity in cows and also the stalks can be used in preparing the composite manure.
Recently, maize production has become so much expensive due to high cost of farm inputs like planting and top dressing fertilizer and other chemicals that are making farmers to do away with maize farming.
Bananas on the other hand have been under looked for a long time by many people terming it as a “part time” food crop.
Banana production might be taken as a cheap activity but according to its farmers like Mzee Tom Wasike from Lwanja in Bungoma County, anyone who wishes to venture into its production should be ready to incur some expenses.
Chemicals, fertilizer, labour and other activities on the farm make banana production as well an expensive activity.
“Bananas use fertilizer and other chemicals for spraying. This makes the crop production much expensive.” Said Wasike, the banana crop farmer.
The plant can be inter-cropped with other crops like coffee thus helping in utilizing the piece of land well.
“A stalk of bananas, during the month of December can be sold at as high as ksh.2000 due to its high demand. We urge the government to support banana farmers for better crop production.” He added
By Peter Musaba