NCPB offers post-harvest solutions to wheat farmers

The National Cereals and Produce Board is providing post-harvest solutions to wheat farmers to minimise losses.

The wheat harvest is underway in parts of Narok county.

Joseph Kimote, NCPB managing directo,r said the move is also aimed at maintaining good wheat quality standards, and enhancing food safety.

“Wheat farmers who are currently harvesting in Narok are invited to utilise NCPB facilities to access affordable and professional services in wheat drying, cleaning, grading, silo storage and weighing,” he said.

He said the NCPB has both mobile and fixed drier services available in Narok silos as well as in Nakuru and Nairobi.

“All the services are affordable and are aimed at supporting farmers to alleviate post-harvest challenges such as wet grains, lack of storage, use of unsafe drying methods, and poor-quality grains that lead to poor market prices," Kimote said.

"In addition there are nonstandard weighbridges that do not reflect accurate weights and defraud farmers of the true value of their grain,” said Kimote.

He said whereas farmers are required to visit the silo to utilise fixed driers, those who wish to have their wheat dried where it is convenient can contact the silo manager Narok so that the mobile drier can be taken to them.

“We encourage farmers to come together or aggregate their wheat so that it can be dried collectively,” he said.

Farmers who use NCPB storage facilities will benefit from safe storage as well as have the wheat marketed on their behalf.

The Board has both conventional stores and Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) intake facilities.

Antony Kioko, CDO of the Cereal Growers Association, has said  production of wheat this year is projected to be between 600,000-700,000 bags for both lower and upper Narok.

This is an improvement from last year, which was 200,000 bags fewer.

According to the Agriculture Food Authority, the country consumes about 2.4 million bags,of which  more than three quarter is imported from Ukraine and Russia.

Food Crops director Calistus Kundu said Kenya produces slightly more than 100,000 metric tonnes, with Narok producing half of the total. 

To bridge the gap, the country imports about two million metric tonnes annually. Local millers cannot import the commodity from India due to a five decade ban by the Kenya Government. 

Aboout 90 per cent of wheat consumed in Kenya is imported, out of which more than 60 per cent is sourced from Ukraine and Russia (Black Sea area). Other sources of wheat include Serbia, the US, Argentina and Australia. 

Kioko said there has been a drop in acreage over the years. This is due to many factors, including farmers dropping out of wheat farming because prices fell.

“Some people gave up on wheat farming due to poor prices and  increased cost of production. This normally eats into the margin of the farmers and those who cannot sustain it drop out,” he said.

A 100kg bag of wheat currently sells for Sh5,200 as negotiated and agreed with the millers and sanctioned by the government.

Kioko called for more government support to help increase production.

“If proper support is instituted, we should be able to see us importing less and less which is good for the economy," he said.

"Every time we see a shipload of imported wheat, this is also imported poverty because it means lost jobs and more pressure on our foreign exchange. There is nothing exciting about importing food that we can produce ourselves. We need to be able to produce as much as possible and reduce the importation bill."