Agriculture Reporter
Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement Permanent Secretary, Dr John Bhasera has urged farmers to adopt new technologies in their operations as a way of increasing production and improving quality of yield.
The Permanent Secretary said this during his recent tour of the Matanuska Banana Farm in Burma Valley adding that the use of modern technology is one sure way of cutting costs for farmers. He said use of solar power is a good way of cutting on electricity usage.
“Adopting new technologies is the way to go in modern farming. By installing solar plants at Matanuska, they have augmented their energy requirements. This also greatly reduces the electricity they use off the grid,” he said.
Dr Basera encouraged farmers to adopt new farming systems that are consistent with Government`s Agricultural Information Management System (AIMS).
The agriculture sector is faced with several challenges ranging from climate change to water scarcity. Without the right tools and knowledge, productivity can be hampered and farmers left counting losses. Besides improving yields, technology also provides an unprecedented opportunity to mitigate some of the challenges associated with the various challenges in the agriculture sector.
Meanwhile, the Agriculture Technical and Extension (AGRITEX) is exploring feasibility of using satellite imagery and drone surveillance during the 2021/22 crop assessment under Command Agriculture/ National Enhanced Agriculture Productivity Scheme (NEAPS) as new technology in determining the national crop output.
The objective of adopting the satellite imagery and drone surveillance is to monitor crop growth from planting till harvest and come up with an accurate national output. Regular crop monitoring will also help to solve current challenges where some farmers falsely declare crop failure in a bid to under-declare output and avoid loan payments.
Currently, crop assessment and estimation of the national crop output is being undertaken by Agriculture Technical and Extension (AGRITEX) officers and the National Crop Assessment Team who use the sampling method.
