{"id":17520,"date":"2025-04-07T14:12:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T14:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=17520"},"modified":"2025-04-07T14:12:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T14:12:41","slug":"govt-to-launch-special-agriculture-police-unit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/?p=17520","title":{"rendered":"Gov&#8217;t to Launch Special Agriculture Police Unit."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"581\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/7789-puyaaa-1024x581.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/7789-puyaaa-980x556.jpeg 980w, https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/7789-puyaaa-480x272.jpeg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) and (max-width: 980px) 980px, (min-width: 981px) 1024px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has announced plans to establish a specialized <em>Agriculture Police Unit<\/em> to address the increasing cases of avocado theft across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Speaking on Monday, April 7, during a meeting with members of the Avocado Subsector, Kagwe stated that the unit will be tasked with safeguarding farmers\u2019 produce\u2014both on farms and after harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTo protect the livelihoods of our farmers, we must ensure that their hard work is not lost to criminal activity,\u201d said Kagwe. \u201cThe Agriculture Police will help secure farms and maintain order across the value chain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CS emphasized that eliminating criminal elements from the sector is vital to preserving farmers\u2019 income and promoting sustainable agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"430\" src=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Agriculture-and-Livestock-Development-CS-Nominee-Mutahi-Jagwe-during-his-vetting-process-before-the-National-Assembly-on-January-14-2025-500x430-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-17522\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Agriculture-and-Livestock-Development-CS-Nominee-Mutahi-Jagwe-during-his-vetting-process-before-the-National-Assembly-on-January-14-2025-500x430-1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/Agriculture-and-Livestock-Development-CS-Nominee-Mutahi-Jagwe-during-his-vetting-process-before-the-National-Assembly-on-January-14-2025-500x430-1-480x413.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 0px) and (max-width: 480px) 480px, (min-width: 481px) 500px, 100vw\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of wider reforms in the avocado sector, Kagwe also encouraged farmers to form cooperatives to protect themselves from exploitative brokers and to improve their bargaining power. He noted that cooperatives would enable producers to access better markets and secure higher returns for their produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The announcement follows the Ministry\u2019s decision in March to lift a suspension on Hass avocado harvesting for export. The Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) had previously halted the harvesting of the variety in October 2024, citing immaturity. After a January 2025 survey, AFA found the Hass variety fit for harvest and export, aligning with already mature varieties like Fuerte and Pinkerton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe has announced plans to establish a specialized Agriculture Police Unit to address the increasing cases of avocado theft across the country. Speaking on Monday, April 7, during a meeting with members of the Avocado Subsector, Kagwe stated that the unit will be tasked with safeguarding farmers\u2019 produce\u2014both on farms and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12,3,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","category-political-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/7789-puyaaa.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17523,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17520\/revisions\/17523"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.getufm.co.ke\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}