Five million fertiliser baggage to be prepared by mid January

Five million fertiliser baggage to be prepared by mid January

Five million baggage of subsidised fertiliser earmarked to be used by small- scale farmers in 2025 lengthy rains season can be in National Cereal and Produce Board (NCPB) shops by mid-January.

Agriculture and Livestock Development Cabinet Secretary Andrew Karanja defined that procurement of the subsidised fertiliser has began and expects it is going to be prepared one month earlier than the beginning of the 2025 lengthy rains season.

The authorities, he said had by NCPB, commenced procurement of 4.9 million 50 kg baggage of fertiliser on July 24, 2024 for each planting and topdressing fertiliser.  Government within the 2024/25 monetary 12 months prolonged Sh10 billion to finance the Fertilizer Subsidy Programme.

“Currently, companies that were awarded tenders to supply the subsided fertiliser are delivering them to NCPB and the agreement is that we will have all the fertiliser in our stores by mid-January 2025 so that by February-March when the rains start, the farmers will be able to access the subsidized fertilizer,” stated Karanja.

Recently, throughout a media discussion board at Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Organisation (Kalro) headquarters, the CS stated the various fertiliser includes 3.3 million baggage for planting and 1.6 million baggage for high dressing.

For the 2024 brief rain season, 2,032,130 baggage of varied sorts of fertilisers have been redeemed by 486,213 farmers.

This has been by the e-voucher system throughout the counties for numerous crops. The provide of the subsidised fertiliser Karanja famous has been disrupted by lack of proximity to depots.   “In some instances, farmers are forced to travel between 200-300 kilometres since the NCPB stores are not many and they are far away,” stated Karanja.

To maximise fertiliser distribution t and entry of the commodity, the CS confirmed that plans are underway to onboard different retailers, for example, effectively organised cooperative societies primarily within the espresso rising zones.

“We are also onboarding a significant number of agrovets and agro-dealers in addition to enhancing their capacities to store adequate fertiliser and thus serve more farmers nearly from their location or area,” defined Karanja.

Regarding a proposal by the council of governments to have the cash factored within the price range be channelled to the county governments, he stated nothing has been mentioned and aggressed thus far.  Equally, he added, a proposal to broaden the subsidy programme to incorporate different inputs is below dialogue. 

Enhanced and sustained provide of subsidised fertiliser, Karanja defined has contributed to meals provide within the nation and thus decreased costs.

For instance, he added: “Maize production estimate for the long rains season is 75,972,332 (50 Kg bags) based on the achieved acreage of 1,648,776 Ha and an estimated average yield of 42 bags per acre. We anticipate that cumulatively, the annual production will hit 94,407,227 (50 kg bags) based on the projected total annual acreage of 2,716,125 ha.”

Further, about 6.3 million baggage of beans are to be harvested bringing the entire inventory of beans to 12.2 million baggage of fifty kg by the top of December 2024.

In the wheat subsector a harvest of 1.8 million baggage is predicted by the top of this month.

The rice stability sheet projection signifies that the nation may have a surplus of two.7 million 50 kg baggage by the top of December 2024. The estimated manufacturing for 2024 is 3,290,641 baggage of fifty kg paddy rice from a complete space of manufacturing of 35,496 ha.