Pastoralists in Samburu County are set to benefit from high quality hay following the construction of an 8 million shillings modern hay store in the area.
The project initiated by the national government is expected to considerably lower the cost of hay in the county during the dry seasons.
Over the years, pastoralist in Samburu County have struggled to get pasture during the dry periods, opting to risk their lives and those of their livestock by invading neighboring counties in search of pasture.
This is expected to change after the national government constructed a modern store with a capacity to hold 40,000 bales of hay under the Regional Pastoral Livelihood Resilient Project.
The project’s supervisor Judy Gachora says the store will help store excess grass harvested during the rainy season as most of it goes to waste.
According to the pastoralist, middlemen from the neighbouring counties have been exploiting them by hiking hay prices during the dry seasons, and are optimistic the store will stabilize the prices.
To shore up the project, the Samburu County Government has distributed 3,200 kilograms of Boma rod seeds to farmers with an expected harvest of 130,000 bales of grass, part of which will be stored at the new modern facility.
Many farmers in Samburu County have embraced pasture farming to increase their earnings.