Agriculture is the main driver of our country’s economy, for sustainable food security to be achieved it is of great importance for the youths of this country to be encouraged to pursue agriculture related courses.
Agriculture is the youngest academic department within SIT. It was hived off Applied Sciences department and established in June 2017. Since then, it had realized a steady increase in student population from 55 to 209 in 2019. Our performance has also been exemplary, we emerged the best technical department in KNEC 2019 July series. The department has a total of 9 trainers and one technician. A number of the department’s trainers also hold key positions in the administration led by The Deputy Principal (ASA) and Chair Performance Contracting.
As the Head of Department Agriculture, am tasked with the effective management of curriculum delivery, coordinating departmental activities including budgeting, procurement, advisory on staff recruitment, training and development, promotion and discipline of staff within the department.
We operate an open- door policy in the department and students are encouraged to freely seek information from the office. The department has a career guidance and counselling officer to support student’s career progression ambitions and plans to have a model horticultural farm where the neighboring community and students from other institutions can learn new methods of farming.
I would encourage a cordial relationship among members of staff and use of proper channels of communication across the different staff cadres. I also advocate for a sustained collaboration with various stakeholders and partners such as the Kenya Seed Company among others in order to empower our youth and impart skills in farm mechanization and agricultural value addition.
This project was started with main aim of offering practical learning experience to students as well as providing opportunities to the local community for capacity building on the importance of the crop and the need to adopt the production of early maturing food crops.
Orange fleshed sweet potatoes are popular for their nutritive value as well as having ready market both locally and internationally. The vines are usually sold as seeds or used as livestock feeds.
The administration has approved the construction of a poultry unit. This is to be used for learning purposes by the agriculture students as well as being used as a production unit for the department to help generate funds