Ministry seeks Sh10bn to buy fertiliser for farmers

The Agriculture ministry wants Sh10 billion to procure enough fertiliser to cater for all farmers in the year to June 2019.

Crops PS Hamadi Boya told a parliamentary committee that the ministry intends to procure and distribute 200,000 metric tonnes of various fertiliser types including 50,000 metric tonnes of agricultural lime.

“The agricultural lime is to be distributed to the areas suspected to have high soil acidity and application of lime is necessary for improved productivity,” he told the Senate Ad-hoc Committee.

Mr Boya said most soils in the maize growing zones are acidic, which needs to be reduced by adding lime for fertiliser to be effective on the crops.

“We intend to start vigorous liming programme to address this issue,” he told the committee inquring into the maize crisis that arose following excess importation of duty-free maize in the year to last December.
Mr Boya said unscrupulous merchants had been buying subsidised fertiliser and repackaged to sale to farmers at higher prices.
“We have strengthened the monitoring and the distribution of government subsidised fertiliser and only vetted and registered farmers will access such fertiliser,” he said.
The government subsidised fertiliser are sold at a standard subsidy price of Sh1,500 except for Sulphate of Ammonia which is sold at Sh1,300 per 50-kilogramme bag.
Mr Boya said the government procured 1,266,930 metric tonnes of fertiliser from 2008 to date at a total cost of Sh34.114 billion.
The fertiliser has since 2008/9 benefited 4,359,947 farmers.
In the last financial year 2017/18, the government purchased 160,900 metric tonnes of fertiliser at a total cost of Sh4.5 billion.
The subsidised fertiliser benefited 700,000 farmers.