Posted on October, 17, 2018 at 09:07 am
Milliam Murigi
Farmers will experience shortage of fertiliser this planting season as the government seeks to eradicate substandard inputs from the market.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri said Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) is scrutinising every imported consignment to ensure substandard fertiliser is detected at the port.
While the standards body has traditionally certified the quality of fertiliser in the country of origin before shipment it has introduced a new set of rules which include re-inspecting all consignments at the port of entry as it seeks to tame proliferation of counterfeits. The process has caused delays at the port of Mombasa.
According to Eustace Muriuki, managing director MEA Ltd and chairman of Fertiliser Association of Kenya, the clearance process is now taking between six weeks to two months. On top of that the importing company is forced to pay daily charges until they get the clearance.
“We are paying one million per day for one of our consignment which has been at the port for two months now. This means the cost will be passed to the end user meaning that in addition to the shortage the price will also be affected,” Muriuki said.
Kiunjuri, who was speaking during the Kenya fertiliser roundtable conference in Nairobi yesterday, revealed that of late the country has been experiencing influx of substandard fertiliser and that is why they want to close all loopholes which could have been used to import such farm inputs.
As of August, 361 containers of fertiliser which is 67 per cent of the cargo analysed, had failed the test and were to be destroyed or shipped back to the country of origin. This was a clear indicator of the rip-off that farmers faced on an annual basis.
However, Kiunjuri said farmers need not to worry because the government had already imported enough fertiliser for its subsidy programme so this shortage will not affect farmers enrolled in the programme.
“Those who will be affected most are the private fertiliser distributors and farmers who are planning to buy from them should consider doing it early enough to avoid any inconvenience but the thing is that fertiliser available and will be of the required standards,” he said.
Source: MediaMax Network