Valeria, a renowned cassava seed producer in her village is one of the 25 CSEs enrolled in the project from Busia County in end of 2022. Valeria cannot hide her excitement from the VIRCA project’s anticipated impact on her community.
“We have a cassava processing facility built by the County Government and run by Uchumi Women group, however, the facility is underutilized due to inadequate Cassava supply from poor yields in the region. With the VIRCA project, we now have a solution to this challenge.
Valeria recalls how she previously used to produce and sell mixed and unclean seed varieties to farmers unknowingly due to inadequate knowledge in quality assurance on Cassava Seed production, this resulted in poor germination of seed and most farmers abandoned cassava farming to other short-term crops like pulses and fruits thus resulting to low produce and supply to the processing facility. Since enrollment to the VIRCA project, Valeria has been taken through a series of business skills and cassava agronomy training and linked to Kenya Agriculture and Livestock Research Organization-KALRO and Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services-KEPHIS, She now has linkages to directly source clean and improved Cassava seed from KALRO and is aware of the certification and quality assurance process by KEPHIS for improved Cassava Seed production.
“I have knowledge on cassava seed certification and quality assurance process, Even if the VIRCA project ends today, the knowledge I have acquired will help me grow my Cassava seed business and to provide improved and clean varieties to farmers in the region, I can now also train other farmers on cassava seed identification and crop management.
