NAROK: Wheat farmers in Narok want the government to raise import duty to 35 per cent to stabilise the grain market. They say the Kenyan market has been flooded with imports, leading to compromise on quality and depressed prices. “The government has not done enough to safeguard our interests.
The cost of production has gone up while prices in the market have either stagnanted or dropped,” said the chairman of Narok Wheat Farmers Association, John Kameno. He said most farmers in the region—the biggest producer of wheat in the country—will not grow the crop this year because they have in the last three seasons been unable to fetch good prices to service loans and to expand land under the crop.
“It is sad that farmers have not been assisted by the government, forcing some of them to sell land to service loans. Cheap imports and lack of subsidies have forced farmers to either reduce acreage or abandon planting,” said the official. An investigation by People Daily indicates that thousands of bags of wheat have been stored by farmers at the National Cereals and Produce Board depot in Narok until prices improve.
Millers who bought a 90-kilogramme bag at between Sh2,900 and Sh3,000 in both lower and upper Narok left early because they could not buy more due to cheap imports that flooded the markets. “We bought only a few tonnes last year because the demand for the grain was low. The demand from bakers was also low because they could access cheap wheat from importers,” said a field manager of an Eldoret-based milling company who spoke on condition of anonymity.
