Cereals board disposes of condemned fertiliser

About 370 bags of fertiliser that were found to be caked have been disposed of by the Kenya Cereals and Produce Board (KCPB) and the National Assembly Committee on Agriculture Livestock and Fisheries at Tiwi, Kwale County.

The consignment is part of 30,000 tonnes of fertiliser that was imported by the government in February this year.

The consignment was disposed of at a 40acre farm belonging to the KCPB in Tiwi, Kwale County.

KCPB Coast Region Manager Lameck Oyugi said the fertiliser would be disposed of agriculturally by the farmers who till the government farm.

“You cannot burn fertiliser; it is a chemical thing that is not easy to burn, you only dispose of it by applying it agriculturally,” he said.

He said that National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) and Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) recommended that the consignment be applied on a government farm.

“The farmers who are tilling this government land will use it so it will benefit them,” he added

He noted that while the quality of the fertiliser was good, it was not free flowing and thus could not be introduced into the market.

The National Assembly committee on agriculture and fisheries chairman, Adan Noor, had earlier said that there was suspicion that the condemned fertiliser had been released to the market, claims KCPB sought put to bed by disposing of it.

At the same time, Mr Oyugi admitted that the process of distribution of subsidised fertiliser has been wanting owing to interference by middlemen.

“We are trying to see how best we can streamline distribution systems so that middlemen do not exploit the farmers,” he said.