For the past month, Kenyans have witnessed a tug of war between the Ministry of Agriculture and the board of the Strategic Food Reserve.
It is good when the war is started early as it exposes what has been going on behind the scenes which have been making farmers suffer for years.
Year in year out, we have been witnessing a crisis, but I believe this kind of clash has given us a lot of insight which could otherwise not have been available to farmers.
Farmers will be aware that they are on their own. They can only rely on prayers. They will also have learnt that they need to rethink their representatives. This should now give us an opportunity to come up with policies and interventions in good time.
In view of the new revelations, we are having a meeting today (Thursday) with SFR chairman Noah Wekesa and the CEO Omar Salat. Among the representatives, we expect include Moiben MP Silas Tiren. He has been central to the discussions about the plight of maize farmers.
We are going to discuss at length, at the Eldoret Townhall, how to safeguard the interest of the farmer at all times. Having the right policies and the right interventions in good time will ensure we don’t just wait for eventualities and act when it too late.
On maize prices, there should be a way of discussing the prices so that farmers will be able to break even, just like the way they do with the price of fuel. But when the cartels come in, they messed up and came up with outrageous figures. At some stage the CS announced that for the government to cushion consumers, the cost of maize flour would be Sh75.
Indirectly, this brought down the prices of a bag of maize to around Sh1, 400 –Sh1, 500 per 90 kg bag.
Kiunjuri was at some stage dictating the price. This made millers shy away from buying a bag of maize at a high price because they had been forced to sell maize meal at Sh75. Yet farmers were not aware of why they were restricted to sell maize at this price.
They could have moved slightly higher to about Sh100 so that the prices of maize could go up. The farmers did not have anywhere to run to.
This lack of coordination between the two bodies is healthy because it has exposed details about the shoddy deals in the ministry.
Going forward, I hope the two will be able to work together for the good of the farmer. This will help come up with better policies.
Some scarifies have to be made to dismantle these cartels.
