The government has announced plans to construct a KSh100 million cotton ginnery in Lamu County, seeking to revive cotton farming.
According to Lamu County Governor, Fahim Twaha, the ginnery will be set up in the Sinambio area, and is expected to have a capacity to process 20,000 metric tonnes of cotton fibre annually. Cotton farming in Kenya has been on a downward spiral since late 1990 when the country produced more than 38,000 metric tonnes.
Lamu is one of the largest cotton-growing counties in Kenya, with an estimated 3,000 metric tonnes of cotton produced annually. However, due to the proliferation of second-hand clothes, cotton production has plunged to an all-time low of 3,495 metric tonnes last year.
Cotton farming is a vision 2030 project that seeks to increase production to more than 50,000 metric tonnes by 2030. In line with this, the county government has procured 4.5 metric tonnes of the seeds this year to be distributed to more than 10,000 cotton farmers in the county.
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