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Last week, President William Ruto said the shortage was due to the logistical challenges at the Red Sea
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He assured Kenyans that the government will ship more fertilisers for planting by April 10
Farmers now want the e-voucher system used by previous government back to curb distribution of fake fertiliser and seeds.
The farmers said if not handled well, the fake fertilisers and seeds currently in the market will delay planting and affect production.
The situation has been made worse by shortage of subsidised fertiliser that has seen farmers queue for long at the National Cereals and Produce Board stores.
Last week, President William Ruto said the shortage was due to the logistical challenges at the Red Sea.
He assured Kenyans that the government will ship more fertilisers for planting by April 10.
“We have had alternative sources of fertiliser and I want to assure farmers that the Ministry of Agriculture is working round the clock to make sure that every farmer gets the requisite fertiliser before the season ends,” Ruto said.
He warned manufacturers and distributors of fake farm input saying those found culpable will face the law.
On March 19 last year, Agriculture Principal Secretary Paul Rono said two million bags of fertiliser were to be distributed to farmers in North Rift and Central regions by March.
“Each region will get one million bags of the commodity, which is fit for all crops. Farmers can get the fertiliser from the National Cereals and Produce Bard stores," he said.
Kenya Farmers Association director Kipkorir Menjo said the e-voucher system is the only way to bringing back sanity in the sector.
This is how the e-voucher system worked.
It began with registration, which was done by hired enumerators or county extension staff.
The registration captured the farmers’ bio-data and transmitted it to the ministry's servers at the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organization in Nairobi.
Farmers and the county extension staff were then trained on the programme and appropriate applications installed in their phones or tablets.
The voucher batches were then released and farmers received messages that required them to be verified by the subcounty agricultural officers or ward agricultural officers.
Upon verification, farmers then received e-voucher messages bearing unique codes which they took to the agro dealers to begin the e-voucher redemption process.
The agro-dealers then keyed in the special unique voucher codes in their systems that prompted farmers to enter their M-Pesa PIN.
The system then automatically deducted 60 per cent of the input cost, triggering a 40 per cent top up from the ministry.
Menjo said if brought back, the system will guarantee farmers quality fertiliser and other inputs.
It will also reduce the long queues at the NCPB stores.
“With the voucher, farmers will pick fertiliser at their nearest registered agro dealers and there will be no delays such as the ones we are currently experiencing," Menjo said.
"The government should let the private sector play the role of providing the product as it (the government) subsidises the price for the farmers. This will make the process faster and we will not have farmers planting late.”
Timothy Njagi, a senior researcher at Tegemeo Institute said the delay will affect production.
“Getting the commodity from agrovets is not only expensive but may limit the quantity of fertiliser that farmers will use, hence low production. The other challenge is that if farmers wait until NCPB gets enough stock, they will plant late," he said.