RATIN

15 grilled over reselling fertiliser higher price

Posted on May, 27, 2016 at 10:07 am


Fifteen people have been arrested and questioned for diverting and repackaging fertiliser from the NCPB.

They then sell it to farmers at higher prices.

At the same time the government has defended the quality of subsidised fertiliser sold by the NCPB after farmers claimed it is to blame for yellowing of maize crops in some parts of Rift Valley.

Agriculture PS Richard Lesiyampe said the fertiliser was tested and complies with all international standards. Part of the maize farms in the region have turned yellow, causing fear among farmers that the fertiliser they used was contaminated.

Lesiyampe and experts from the ministry are visiting the affected farmers.

“We will not allow unscrupulous people to cause harm to the agriculture sector by messing up with the fertiliser farmers use,” he said. Lesiyampe spoke in Eldoret after a meeting with farmers in the Ziwa area.

He said Uasin Gishu farmers whose maize crops have turned yellow after germination could have been victims of fake fertiliser sold by unscrupulous traders.

“We are aware some people mixed fertiliser with some chemicals and even soil then sold to farmers. This could have been part of the problem we are experiencing now,” the PS said.

But some farmers say the imported subsidized fertiliser has caused the yellowing of their maize.

“The fertiliser is imported from different parts of the world and its quality may be questionable,” Ziwa farmers' representative Jonathan Chumo said.

Several NCPB officials have already been suspended over the fertiliser scam.

Lesiyampe toured some farms with Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Services managing director Esther Kimani and North Rift regional manager Alfred Musuya.

North Rift farmers last week wrote to the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture to investigate the importation of poor quality fertiliser, which they said is threatening food security in the country’s grain basket.

They want the National Assembly to establish whether the relevant state agencies certified the fertiliser.

Source: The Star