The department of Agriculture, Livestock and Blue Economy comprises of four directorates of Agriculture, Livestock production, Veterinary services and Fisheries development. Each of the directorates has its own functions to perform but all geared towards one vision of making Baringo County a food secure healthy and wealthy County anchored in vibrant, innovative and competitive agricultural sector. The department also has two semi-autonomous institutions; Agricultural Mechanization Services (AMS Marigat) and Agricultural Training Services (ATC Koibatek)

Vision

A food secure, healthy and wealthy county for sustainable socio-economic development

Mission.

To improve the livelihoods of Baringo people through sustainable management of crop and livestock resources and utilization of the blue economy and sustainable land management.

Department Mandate

1. To increase crop, livestock, fish production and productivity through appropriate technologies for food security

2. To increase market access through promotion of value addition, sustainable supply chains and development of standards along the value chains;

3. To prevent and control crop, livestock, fish pests and diseases

4. To enhance community resilience through climate change adaptation innovations

5. To develop institutional and legal framework and increase participation of stakeholders in the sector

Healthy, sustainable and inclusive food systems are critical to achieve the development goals of our County. Agricultural development is one of the most powerful tools to end extreme poverty, boost shared prosperity, and feed a population of 700,000. It supports over 90% of the County population and therefore, growth in the sector is key in raising incomes among the poor compared to other sectors. It is also crucial to our County economic growth: in 2020, it accounted for 60% of Gross County Product (Kenya Economic Outlook paper, 2020).

Sustainable and efficient agricultural practices are therefore vital not only in guaranteeing food security, but also in addressing the challenges of a growing global population and ensuring a resilient and secure future.

A sure strategy to enable our farmers to take advantage of the enormous prevalent competitive advantages to make money from within Baringo and beyond, is to transform agriculture, livestock and blue economy sub sectors into commercially driven and innovative life changing ventures.

To achieve this, all our efforts as a Department will revolve around increasing productivity, investing in value chain development, promoting mechanization, improving farmers’ capacity through intensified trainings and extension services; and developing reliable markets, as these are the key drivers for the sector.

This will be done with the aim of not only improving food security, but also producing enough to enable us venture into, and sustain value addition especially in the dairy, meat, coffee and apiculture sub sectors.

A summary of our interventions in the Agriculture, Livestock and Blue Economy Sub-Sectors will be the following: -

• Livestock breeds upgrading through Artificial Insemination, Pedigree Bulls, Gala Bucks, Dorper Rams;

• Construction of new sale yards and rehabilitation of existing ones– enable farmers to cut out middlemen and fetch better prices for their livestock

• Livestock Disease control – Vaccinations; construction and rehabilitation of cattle dips

• Promotion of pasture production and storage

• Promotion of Apiculture

• Promotion of fisheries development

• Crops and horticultural development - Distribution of subsidized seedlings and fertilizer

All these hard work will not bear the desired results, if we do not see them through to value addition. We will therefore fast track the completion and operationalization of 2 slaughter houses, one each in Barwessa and Loruk as well as the Maoi Abattoir which shall be fully equipped to international standards. Ensuring we end transportation of live animals out of our County will be one avenue of job creation and a sure one for the expansion of our revenue base.

We will prioritize the Completion our Milk Processing Plant in Eldama Ravine, to not only promote value addition in the dairy sector but to also create employment and increase income for farmers among other spinoff benefits. I challenge farmers to embrace technology in dairy farming to optimize production of milk to guarantee maximum use of the milk plant, so that they too, reap to the maximum from this rewarding venture.

In the coffee value chain, we shall sustain the empowerment of farmers and initiate extension services to further enhance coffee production. This will ensure that the Baringo Cha Coffee Mill operates in its full capacity of 1.2 tonnes per hour. Meanwhile, we shall be exploring avenues for the expansion of our South Korean market through our contacts in the Tiger Economy.

The Department promotes both capture fisheries and fish farming (Aquaculture). Capture fisheries thrives in the fresh water lakes and dams. To enhance fish value addition, the Department is constructing a fish landing beach fully equipped with cold chain facilities to reduce post harvest losses among other interventions, including the capacity building of fish farmers.

The Department of Livestock Production is responsible for the management and conservation of the genetic resource base, development of appropriate policy and legal framework, development of county and national marketing networks, value addition in livestock products, processing and agribusiness, quality assurance for livestock feeds and collaboration with research institutions and other stakeholders in technology development and provision of extension services. To carry out these functions, the department is structured into four divisions namely:

1. Animal production division: This division focuses on dairy and beef production, sheep and goats, non-ruminants, livestock feeds and breeding. It also takes care of extension management, gender equity mobilization, extension information and publications, research extension liaison and food security.

2. Range management division: This offers services in pastoralism and ranching, rangeland resource monitoring and camel production.

3. Livestock marketing and value addition division: This is responsible for livestock information management, livestock market coordination and value addition of livestock and livestock products. It will also be in charge of monitoring and evaluation of projects.

4. Apiculture and emerging livestock division that is responsible for offering services in beekeeping, quality assurance of bee products and emerging livestock.

Department of Veterinary Services:

The Department of Veterinary Services is charged with the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of animal health related strategies, policies and legal framework; management, control and eradication of animal diseases and pests including zoonoses.

It is also responsible for laboratory diagnostic services and disease surveillance; provision and facilitation of extension services in animal health, welfare and production; maintenance of infrastructure.

Other activities include development and co-ordination of projects and programs in the animal health sector; information management; and regulation, inspection and quality control of inputs, live animals, animal products and by-products.

All these functions are done in collaboration with other stakeholders.

To achieve this mandate, the department is divided into 4 divisions namely:

1. Animal diseases & pest control.

Controls and eradicates epizootic notifiable diseases, vectors such as tsetse and ticks in collaboration with stakeholders in addition to facilitating and regulating trade in animals and animal products.

2. Diagnostics, quality assurance & bio safety.

Undertake disease diagnosis, epidemiological surveys, quality assurance of veterinary inputs and acquiring, testing and adopting new technologies.

3. Food safety & animal by products

Ensures safety of food of animal origin and promotes value addition and marketing of hides and skins

4. Breeding, extension & animal welfare

Regulates the provision of animal breeding and veterinary extension services. It is also responsible for promotion of animal welfare

Baringo County Government remains the largest funder of agricultural projects. Development partners such as National government and other stakeholders also played a role in funding the sector. In FY 2022-2023 the department was allocated 10.8% of the total County’s Budget.

In the 2022-2023 FY the department of Agriculture, Livestock and Blue Economy was allocated KES 549,873,869 for development and KES 241,620,032 for staff emoluments and KES 14,869,781 for operation and maintenance.

The operations and maintenance budget for the department remains very low for the department to operate optimally and deliver agricultural extension services to farmers for increased agricultural productivity. However, in the first supplementary of 2022-2023 FY, the Department was allocated KES 676,176,330 for development, KES 27,669,781 for operation and maintenance and KES 229,297,410 for personal emoluments for executive, permanent and pensionable employees, casual and contractual employees. Agriculture Training Centre (ATC) was allocated KES. 5,000,000 and Agriculture Mechanization station AMS) KES 3,000,000 for operation and maintenance in the first budget supplementary of 2022-2023 FY.

The absorption of development funds in FY2022-2023 has improved by 12.5% compared to FY2021-2022.

The sub- sector is mandated to provide leadership in the management and development of fisheries resources.

Functions:

The Department plays a key role within the overall structure of government. According to the Executive order No: 2/ 2013 issued in 20^th May, 2013 on the organization of the Government of the Republic of Kenya, the State Department has the following core functions;

The Department’s specific functions as informed by the above order are:

1. Coordinate the management and development of inland fisheries.

2. Promote and coordinate development of aquaculture

3. Coordination of the preparation, review and implementation of fisheries policies, legislation and County specific Fisheries management plans

4. Develop and manage fish seed bulking units

5. Promotion of fish quality assurance, value addition and marketing

6. Promote and strengthen fisheries extension services.

7. Provision of extension services to the fisheries stakeholders in the value chain.

8. Issue and manage fisheries licenses.

9. Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of fisheries projects and programmes.

10. Management of fisheries related infrastructure(e.g fish landing beaches, cold chain facilities along the fish value chain and fish processing facilities

11. Enforcement of fisheries regulations and ensure compliance

12. Demarcation of fish breeding areas and development of maps for cage culture potential areas

13. Promoting recreational and ornamental fisheries

14. On farm trials and Outreach - eat more fish campaigns

15. Zonation for aquaculture County specific disease control

Fisheries resources in Baringo County

Baringo County is well endowed with fisheries resources. The county has 3 fresh water lakes i.e Lake Baringo, Lake 94 and Kapnarok. The other major water bodies that support fisheries activities are man-made water dams and individual farmer ponds across the County.

Lake Baringo is the leading source of fish in Baringo County. It contributes 90% of total annual fish landed in the County. The annual fish production from Baringo county is 280 metric tonnes. The sub- sector earns the fisherfolk approximately Ksh 94 million Kenya shillings. Lake Baringo has six gazette landing beaches namely Kampi ya Samaki, Ngenyin, Loruk, Komolion, Kiserian and Salabani.

There are 247 artisanal fishermen operating in the lake using small wooden canoes. Five fish species are exploited on a commercial basis namely Tilapia (Oreochromisniloticusbaringoensis), African lung fish (Protopterusethiopicus) catfish (Clariasgariepinus), barbus species (Barbusintermedius) and Labeo. Currently, landings of Lung fish constitute 60 percent of the annual landings. This makes the species a major contributor to revenues earned locally.

Dam fisheries

Baringo County Government stocked 41 out 97 mapped community water dams with tilapia and catfish fingerlings. Dam fishery is not yet fully exploited before despite its huge potential of providing food and creating employment among the communities living around those dams. Currently organized fishing activities have started taking place in 10 of those stocked dams and contribute approximately 1.2% of the County annual fish production. Besides, the County has stocked Chemususu dam in Eldama Ravine with 50,000 trout fingerlings in order to promote sport fishing.

Aquaculture

There are 851 fish ponds in Baringo County covering an estimated surface area of 174,300 square area. The annual fish production from aquaculture is 19 metric tonnes. This accounts for approximately 10% of total annual fish production in the county. The two main fish species cultured are tilapia and catfish. Majority of the fish ponds are in Mogotio and Eldama Ravine which benefitted from the economic stimulus program of 2010. The interest to venture into fish farming has since increased in other sub-counties such as Baringo South, Baringo Central and Baringo North. Fish production from aquaculture is expected to increase due to the huge unexploited production potential in the water dams, cage culture, swamps and marshlands that are widespread within the county. The demand for fish within the county has also been on the increase hence necessitating venture into fish farming.