Pyrethrum board is moribund

Pyrethrum was introduced in Kenya in the 1920s by colonial farmers through enactment of the Pyrethrum Act.

Africans were not permitted to cultivate or market pyrethrum. With the attainment of independence, the law was changed with effective from September 15, 1964.

Pyrethrum was the most important crop after coffee and tea. Kenya contributed over 70 percent of the world production. Under the then managing director, Mr Job Wainaina, the board had a cash reserve of over Sh5 billion for paying farmers for deliveries.

The rain started beating us in the 1990s when Parliament enacted the State Corporations Act Cap 446.

This period has witnessed a litany of cases of theft, mis-management and corruption by managers and directors appointed and seconded to the board by the Ministry of Agriculture.

Industry stakeholders have been questioning most of the appointments to no avail. Farmers have responded by uprooting pyrethrum and replacing it with other crops.

In retaliation, Agriculture ministry officials have retrenched workers without paying them terminal benefits, closed regional offices and scaled down their operations. More than 500 workers have been sacked over a three-year span with another 190 listed to go home before the end of January.

The abrupt changes at the helm of PBK do not augur well for the industry. For example, the quality of the pyrethrum extract has deteriorated over the last three years.

The Pyrethrum Board has also reneged on their core mandate of protecting the local industry and has allowed foreign companies to overrun the local market with synthetic substitutes with questionable human and environmental safety profiles.

Due to a lack of continuous improvement in technology and know-how, the highest concentration of pyrethrum extract from pyrethrum board is currently at 50 per cent, yet some local companies have achieved over 85 per cent purity concentration.

JUSTUS M. MONDA,

Chairman, Pyrethrum Growers Association