Kenya to host Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit

The summit, which will take place at the Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi will bring together African government officials, policy makers, farmers organisations and other persons in the private sector. 

“The objective of the Summit is to highlight the crucial role of fertilizer and soil health in stimulating pro-poor productivity growth in African agriculture and to agree on an African Fertilizer and Soil Health Action Plan as well as the Soils Initiative for Africa,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Monday. 

The summit comes at a time when the host –Kenya- is faced with controversy over the authenticity of fertilizer provided to farmers under the government subsidy programme. 

An alarm on fake fertiliser in the Kenyan market raised a month ago has since led to a probe into how the substance was approved and distributed to farmers through the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB). 

A probe into the matter has been ongoing at the Senate, where Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi has been called to explain the issue. 

Linturi has since held his stance that there was no fake fertiliser distributed through NCPB. He argues that the fertiliser in question is only substandard. 

The probe has led to the closure of KEL chemicals factory, which supplied the government with three thousand bags of ‘substandard fertilizer’.