By Rodgers Omondi, Busia
The Agriculture and Food Authority has launched a cotton seed milling equipment at Luanda cotton ginnery in Samia Sub County in Busia to help in value addition as a way of boosting cotton farming and profit to the farmers.
The machine which cost ksh 500,000 will enhance the value of cotton through value addition by processing of cotton seeds to cotton oil and seed cake.
Speaking during the launch, the director general of AFA Dr Bruno Linyiru stated that the installation of the machine will result in an increase in price of seed cotton due to the increased number of the outcome products.
“The increase in value addition activities will enhance the farm gate price of seed cotton by an estimated 8-11%. This is because there will be three products derived from processing of seed cotton; lint, oil and seed cake. The products will be sold out to textile mills, animal feed manufacturers and paint industries, respectively,” said the DG.
He said the machine has been designed to be able to mill other oil crops and has been manufactured in the country.
“We are working with local institutions which have worked on this machine meaning the spare parts will be available locally. This machine can also be used to mill sunflower and other oil crops.” He said
Dr Linyiru stated that the authority is focused to ensure it reduces the amount of money used in importation of lint and seed cake.
“The target is to increase area under cotton production and productivity from 40,000 acres and 153 Kg/acre (in 2024) to 160,000 acres and 900 Kg/acre respectively by 2027” he said
He indicated that the government has been supporting cotton production by supporting the value chain with quality inputs especially seeds and pesticides. In the year 2025 the Government provided 1000 MT of Open Pollinated Varieties (OPV) and BT cotton seeds for both long rains and short rains. Busia County has so far received 125 MT (OPV) and 750 Kg (BT) seeds.
The DG assured that the government is going to ensure it replaces the old equipment with the new ones for ginning to ensure the industry is fully revived. He also added that this will go along with supporting the farmers and unions together with provision of the right pesticide and high yield seeds for plantation.
The equipment which has a milling capacity of 80 kg per hour is going to be piloted at the Muluanda ginnery.
Funyula MP Godfrey Mdenyo in his address urged the residents to do more cotton farming to provide the required quantity of cotton at the ginnery.
“Cotton production in Busia County is generally low compared to machines that we have. Many farmers in the county are old people but we need to bring young people to cotton farming so that this farming can be fully revived and survive. There is job, profit and business in cotton farming that’s why I am urging our youth to come out and start farming.” He said
He also explained the need to consider other raw materials for the textile industry adding that they can also help to improve the livelihood of farmers.
“Let’s also look at the textile value chain. Let’s look at other raw materials for the textile industries including silk and sisal so that we can improve diversification other than depending on cotton farming alone.” He said.
Busia county chief officer for agriculture Elijah Mwaro said that cotton farmers numbers in the county have been increasing over the past one year.
“We did farmer profiling in the county and we found 142,000 households are doing farming making 85% of Busia County land to be arable. We also found that 4200 were cotton farmers and we have improved to almost 10,000 farmers over one year.” He said.
