Only registered farmers will sell maize to NCPB

The Ministry of Agriculture is set to start vetting maize farmers who will benefit from the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) purchase.

According to the Ministry, NCPB will only buy maize from registered farmers in renewed efforts to weed out middlemen who had infiltrated the sector.

In a notice in the dailies, maize farmers are urged to register with NCPB or risk being locked out from accessing the strategic reserve.

The Ministry of Agriculture has already developed a farmers’ register which is available at all county agricultural offices where farmers can check and verify their registration details.

“Farmers who are not in the register are advised to register immediately at their respective county agricultural offices to qualify to sell their maize to NCPB in the current season,” the Ministry said in the notice.

Maize farmers have expressed fears that middlemen could be holding as many as two million bags of maize ahead of the opening of the NCPB stores.

Last week the government announced that the National Cereal and Produce Board would buy maize from farmers at Sh3,000 per 90 kilogram bag up from the previous price of  Sh2,300.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Willy Bett said the ministry was also investigating the infiltration of middlemen at NCPB to ensure only genuine farmers benefit from the high prices for the current harvest season.

“This is the time when middlemen are now hiring stores around to go pick produce at throw away price and come store them and eventually sell to NCPB at a better price and that’s what we don’t want,” Mr Bett stressed.

Some farmers are said to have sold maize for as low as Sh1,200.

Mr Bett however said that in future the government would base maize prices on a market survey to ensure farmers are not compensated for inefficient farming practices.

“We are basing our prices now on a market survey because we survey on the cost of production so that we can set a price. A price that will give the farmer a markup but not a price which we are compensating for certain inefficiencies,” he said.