The NCPB will vet farmers delivering maize to its depots to weed out unscrupulous traders.
Maize farmers have started to queue at the NCPB stores amid fears that unscrupulous traders may end up supplying the cereal to the board.
National Cereals and Produce Board managing director Albin Sang yesterday said they are not sure if those in the queues at the depots are genuine farmers or traders who want to sell maize brought from Uganda.
Sang said county commissioners have cautioned the board against buying maize until they are sure that those in queues are genuine farmers.
“I was told to take that maize at my own risk as those are not all genuine farmers but traders who brought maize from Uganda, dried and stored it. They are spread in Kitale, Moi’s Bridge, Eldoret and Nakuru depots,” the MD said.
Some of these traders hide behind cooperative societies to take advantage of the window given to farmers and sell maize to the board.
Sang said for farmers to sell maize to NCPB, they will be vetted and the county team will look at the audit and verify if they are genuine. A chief has to also sign and verify if the farmers are from his village.
He said the board is yet to open doors for the farmers to supply the cereal. It has to get the go-ahead from the Agriculture ministry to open the depots.
The Strategic Grain Reserves Trust Fund, chaired by Noah Wekesa, has approved the purchase of two million bags from the farmers through the board.
The farmers have asked the board to buy at least four million bags and not two million.
The NCPB has announced that each farmer will not be allowed to sell more than 400 bags.
Two days ago Wekesa promised the farmers in Eldoret that the depots would be opened. “We are prepared to start the purchase in an orderly manner to avoid a repeat of past mistakes,” Wekesa said.
Sang has said the Strategic Food Reserve will give each county a ratio of the cereal to supply, depending on previous supplies and the expected harvest.
Only farmers in registers cleared by the county governments and the Ministry of Agriculture will be allowed to deliver maize.
The strict measures will cut out traders who purchase maize in large quantities at cheaper prices and then sell it to the NCPB.
Sources said officials from the EACC and the Agriculture ministry will be deployed at the depots to monitor the buying process. The board has bought new gunny bags to store the crop.
On January 10, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed the cereals board to start buying maize at Sh2,500 per 90kg bag.
Following the directive, farmers have been lining up outside the NCPB depots in Eldoret, Moi’s Bridge, Nakuru, Kitale and Nandi expecting to sell their 2018 harvest.
protest
On Monday farmers protested at the NCPB depot in Eldoret, where more than 150 lorries and tractors were parked expecting to be let in.
Kenya Farmers Association director Kipkorir Menjo urged Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri and the NCPB management to open the depots as directed by the President.
“We seem to have started over the same game, where farmers are cheated. We are wondering why those in charge are not implementing Uhuru’s order a week later,” he said.
Menjo and other farmers’ representatives said it is unfair for the delay to continue yet farmers are supposed to prepare their farms from next month.
Governors in the North Rift have also asked the government to suspend the sale of 1.7 million bags of maize at the NCPB to millers.
Instead, they want millers to buy directly from farmers.
The government has said it will sell the maize to millers at Sh1,600 per 90kg bag whereas the NCPB will buy the cereal from growers at Sh2,500 per 90kg bag.
The President further ordered the NCPB to sell the maize to millers to decongest silos in readiness for the purchase of fresh produce from farmers.
Uasin Gishu governor Jackson Mandago, who is the chairman of the North Rift Economic Bloc, said selling maize to the millers would complicate the market for farmers.
He said farmers have more than 18 million bags of maize in their stores.
The board has more than 3.5 million bags of the crop purchased from farmers last year and most of its stores are full.
“We should agree on how these stocks will be sold. If millers get 1.7 million bags from the NCPB, yet the board will buy only two million bags from farmers, where will the other 16 million bags of maize be taken?” Mandago asked.