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NAIROBI, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) -- 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. Enditem
