Farmers in the North Rift region have started buying fertilizer at Sh3.500 for a 50kg bag.

Agriculture CS Mithika Linturi confirmed that farmers in Kitale in Trans Nzoia County and Eldoret in Uasin Gishu County have started buying subsidized fertilizer.

The CS said the subsidy is selling at Sh3,500 per 50 kg bag through the e-voucher system but the country is looking into importing cheaper fertiliser from Tanzania.  

On Friday, the CS was in Dodoma, Tanzania where he visited the newly established Intracom fertiliser production plant factory which he said could help bring down the cost.

The price of fertiliser had by last year reached a record high of Sh6,500 per bag.

“We are looking for ways to cushion farmers and help bring down the cost of fertiliser to less than Sh3,000 per bag,” said Linturi.

The CS spoke during the launch of phase two of the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS) platform.

But some farmers in Uasin Gishu County have started complaining that they are being sold in less quantity than what they had requested.

One farmer who did not want to be mentioned said he had requested 200 bags of fertiliser but was only issued with 17 bags.

According to a senior government official, the assortment of the subsidy fertiliser being sold to farmers contains less of the DAP fertiliser.

This is because the Government is discouraging farmers from using DAP fertiliser as it depletes the soil.  

While launching the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS) platform, the CS said plans are underway to re-introduce extension services.  

Linturi said this will be done through the KIAMIS digital platform which will enable the Government to organize and put data together, and then use the data to implement various farmer support services.

He said in order to facilitate the use of data and digitization of various services in the agricultural sector, the Ministry has partnered with FAO to design and implement the Kenya Integrated Agriculture Management Information System (KIAMIS).

This will be done through a grant of nearly Sh650 million from the Swedish Government.  

“Once completed, the KIAMIS components will enable us to do other things including Farmers Credit Management scheme, food security data collection and data sharing, e-extension services, and expanded mechanization among others,” said the CS.

Linturi noted that the biggest challenge we face in implementing government subsidies and other farmers’ support programmes is the lack of a complete register of genuine farmers.

He said there have been attempts to register farmers through various government programmes and Counties' efforts.

“But recently, when the government wanted to launch the new national fertilizer subsidy programme, we had a list of only 1.3 million validated farmers available, in a country with 6.4 million farmers,” said Linturi.

The CS said in order to address this challenge, the government recently launched a rapid national farmers’ registration through the National Government Administration (Chiefs, Assistant Chiefs and village elders).

This effort has led to the registration of 4.2 million farmers.

“But, while this rapid registration is helping us to fast-track the implementation of the new national fertilizer subsidy this year, the established list of farmers is not complete since it covers only crop farmers. Furthermore, the rapid nature of this registration and use of village elders to identify the farmers and validate the existing farms is bound to have some gaps,” he said.

Linturi said he is looking forward to seeing this Ministry using the KIAMIS platform to digitize these farmer support services and also to ensure the collection and sharing of data and statistics to support decision and policy making.

 “The Swedish Government has given a Sh650 million grant to the UN-Food and Agriculture Organisation to assist the ministry of agriculture with technical support to implement the platform,” said Caroline Vicini, Swedish Ambassador to Kenya.

The KIAMIS work started in 2019 with the design and piloting of a harmonized, national farmers’ registration system.

The registration system has been tested and the Ministry has used it to register farmers in Nyandarua and Uasin Gishu and implement the fertilizer subsidy on a pilot basis. -AGATHA NGOTHO, The Star