Posted on :Monday , 3rd July 2023

In a ground-breaking move to increment rice seed creation and size of further developed rice assortments in Kenya, the Mwea Rice Producers Multipurpose Helpful Society (MRGM), the biggest ranchers' helpful in East and Southern Africa (ESA), has gotten a cutting edge seed dressing machine from the Worldwide Rice Exploration Organization (IRRI), denoting a significant achievement in improving rice seed tasks in the country.  

The authority handover occurred on 12 June 2023 at MRGM's Seed Handling Unit, Mwea. What’s more, was gone to by senior government authorities from Kenya's Service of Farming, Animals and Fisheries; and Kenya Agrarian and Domesticated animals Exploration Association (KALRO) and the IRRI Africa researchers.

MRGM, bragging an enrolment north of 7,000 ranchers, assumes a vital part as an enlisted seed maker and shipper, guaranteeing the accessibility of further developed rice assortments in Kenya while working under a permitting concurrence with KALRO. In any case, the agreeable has confronted huge difficulties in manual seed treatment restricting its activity and scale. Perceiving the squeezing need to increment rice creation, IRRI gave a cutting edge seed dresser that has a noteworthy seed handling limit of 3-5 tons of rice seed each hour, reforming the effectiveness of seed dressing activity. Beforehand, the relentless manual drum seed dressing activity required 24 hours and a group of nine (9) people to deal with similar amount of seeds.

The opportune gift of a cutting edge seed dresser by IRRI mirrors IRRI's obligation to address a portion of the squeezing needs to limit the rising rice imports in ESA, which have applied a significant weight on nearby economies. With rice independence rates falling in various African nations, including Kenya, the accessibility of value seed of the superior environment brilliant assortments is imperative to check and address this pattern. IRRI, at the front of creating market-requested and environment tough rice assortments, has delivered almost forty assortments in the district over the course of the last 10 years. The advanced seed dressing machine gave to MRGM won't just lift quality seed creation yet additionally support IRRI's and the Kenya government's central goal to help the general rice area in Kenya.

Dr. Mary Mutembei, Top of the Rice Advancement Program (RIPP) at the Service of Farming, Animals and Fisheries, offered her thanks to IRRI for its unflinching help in reinforcing the rice area in Kenya and supporting the seed frameworks. "The public authority has left on a development program to expand the region under rice development in Kenya, and this is supposed to build the interest for rice seed to around 7,500 MT continuously 2030. Subsequently, the cutting edge seed dressing machine will fundamentally support the limit of MRGM to deliver quality seed and add to satisfying the need of rice seed in the country. With upgraded productivity, quality rice seed will be made accessible to ranchers on time and at a reasonable cost," she added.

MRGM Chief Mr. Muriuki, offered thanks for the seed dresser IRRI gave. He underscored the extraordinary effect the seed dressing unit will have on rice seed handling activities at the agreeable. Mr. Muriuki featured that this liberal commitment will fortify MRGM's situation as a forerunner in the ideal arrangement of value seed to ranchers in the country. Besides, he accepts that the outcome of MRGM can act as a model for copying by other ranchers' cooperatives in East and Southern Africa.