Muranga County Agricultural Farm Inputs Subsidy Policy 2022-2032

Abstract

The agricultural farm inputs subsidy policy is a policy instrument that outlines the goals, the objectives, the methodology and the justification with the resultant outputs and impacts of the program designed to start in year 2022 up to year 2032. The program is aimed at cushioning farmers through farm inputs subsidy, in the mango and dairy value chains, delivering produce to contracted processers and up takers of raw materials. This is meant to be an improvement to the previous subsidy program where the County Government used to do bulk procurement of specific farm inputs that were non targeted and which has generated a number of lessons to improve on. The agricultural farm inputs subsidy program shall use a mobile based approach where farmers shall receive cash instead of physical farm inputs to offer flexibility in decisions making most ideal to their production options. The overall goal is to ensure adequate use of agricultural inputs which has been identified as one way of enhancing agricultural productivity. Agricultural input subsidies aim to make inputs available to users at below market costs as a way of incentivizing adoption, increasing agricultural productivity and profitability, increasing food availability and access and ultimately reducing poverty and stimulating economic growth. The logic behind the proposed subsidy is premised on the fact that farm inputs use among small scale producers is low due to inflationary factors beyond their control and ends up leading them to a poverty cycle. The objectives of this program which shall be carried out through an electronic voucher system on a mobile based platform are; To provide for capacity building of the agricultural farm inputs subsidy beneficiaries and process implementers; To facilitate transfer of farm inputs subsidy to farmers/ from physical procurement and delivery of inputs to an electronic mode in form of evoucher, cash transfers and to ring-fence the farmer subsidies to only the targeted farm inputs and services through an integrated IT mobile based system.