[ad_1]
Farmers’ problems may persist even longer as they risk not receiving fertiliser on time for the long rains planting season.
Even before the dust has settled on unscrupulous traders milking the National Cereals and Produce Board, another crisis is about to hit the Agriculture ministry.
The Star had learnt that the ministry is yet to order purchase of subsidised fertiliser for the March-May long rains season. Delivery will require two months.
Maize farmers, especially in the North Rift, start planting from mid-February to mid-March and start buying fertiliser from January.
This year has been a busy and distressing year for the ministry, as CS Mwangi Kiunjuri has been busy sorting out the mess at the cereals board.
The board has been rocked with one crisis after another this year.
Read: NCPB races against time to dispatch subsidised fertiliser
The CS is yet to announce the day of opening the stores for farmers to start selling this year’s maize harvest.
The delay is despite not having yet cleared the money owed to farmers for maize delivered to the NCPB in 2017.
According to a senior official who did not want to be named, the government has a two-year contract with the Export Trading Company Limited to supply imported fertiliser and the Access to Government Procurement Opportunities to supply some local blends.
The contract expires on January 11, 2019, and the government still owes the company billions of shillings from the fertiliser delivered last season.
“I believe the government will still pay the debt as there has been a proposal to extend the contract for another one year,” the official said.
There was a proposal in the Agriculture Growth and Transformation Strategy to renew the contract for a further one year till January 2020, but this is yet to be confirmed.
So far, this has not been agreed on and the ministry is yet to get approval to order the import of 150, 000 metric tonnes of CAN, NPK DAP and blended fertilisers for the next planting season.
The ministry says farmers need about three million bags of fertiliser for the long rains planting season, but the country has fewer than than 500, 000 bags of fertiliser at the NCPB stores.
Next year, farmers will again be crying out to the government to provide subsidised fertiliser to avoid late planting.
It is not clear what the ministry will do to ensure farmers get the fertiliser on time.
In June this year, former agriculture PS Richard Lesiyampe told the National Assembly public account committee how traders sold fake fertilisers to farmers.
Read: Kiunjuri puts NCPB staff on notice over sale of subsidised fertiliser
[ad_2]
