Farmers bear brunt of poor maize prices

The financially troubled National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) is headed for a confrontation with maize farmers over delays in purchasing this season’s produce.

This comes in the wake of a warning from agriculture experts of an impending food crisis caused by disease outbreaks and erratic weather conditions.

Whereas farmers want NCPB to open its depots countrywide, the board says the government is yet to release the Sh2.7 billion it has set aside to purchase maize.

The farmers argue the delay is exposing them to exploitation by middlemen who have flocked markets purchasing the produce at throwaway prices.

The prices have plummeted to a low of Sh1,500 for a 90kg-bag from Sh2,800, due to flooding of maize from Uganda and Tanzania.

Maize farmers in North Rift, the country’s bread basket, demonstrated along the busy Eldoret-Webuye highway last week to protest the falling prices.

“The NCPB sets competitive market prices and delays in allocating it funds is exposing us to exploitation by middlemen,” said Mr Reuben Too from Saos in Nandi County.

But NCPB managing director Newton Terer said they were waiting for the government to allocate them funds, two months after farmers harvested the crop.

“We act on behalf of the government and the exercise will start once we receive orders,” said Mr Terer.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei last month said the government had set aside Sh2.7 billion for the purchase.

A spot check by the Sunday Nation found that most NCPB stores in the North Rift region were stocked with last season’s produce.

A source within NCPB disclosed that more than 3 million bags of maize need to be off-loaded from depots in Moi’s Bridge and Turbo to other stores preferably Webuye and Bungoma to create room for this season’s produce.

The stock, according to the source, was meant for the Strategic Grain Reserve but has been lying in stores for several months.

The NCPB recently announced plans to sell 800,000 bags of to raise Sh1.4 billion to shore up its account as it negotiates with the government over a Sh5.6 billion debt the State owes it ahead of the restructuring of the parastatal to be renamed Grain Corporation of Kenya.

Maize farmers in the region yesterday said millers had taken advantage of the East African Community market to import maize and wheat from Uganda and Tanzania into the country ahead of harvesting of the crops.

“As much as we respect the EAC common market protocol, the government needs to cushion us from unfair competition by subsidising the cost of production as much as possible,” said Mr Joel Kogo, a farmer. The farmers claimed most maize from Uganda enters the country through the porous Suam border.

Rift Valley produced an average of 16 million bags of maize last year compared to about 20 million bags the previous season.