President Uhuru Kenyatta, in a statement to newsrooms, has directed NCPD to review the buying price of maize from Kenyan Farmers to Ksh 2500.
The cash will be the standard price that NCPD is supposed to buy a 90 kg bag of maize from farmers around the country.
He also directed Agriculture CS Mwangi Kiunjuri, in coordination with county governments, to authorize NCPB to immediately open buying centres and stores to receive maize from farmers across the country.
“I have directed the CS for Agriculture to authorize NCPB through the Strategic Food Reserve to immediately open buying centres & stores in coordination with respective County Governments, to receive 2 million, 90Kg bags of maize @ Sh 2,500 per bag from farmers across the country,” read a section of the statement.
Addressing the concern of many, Uhuru confirmed that despite the price increase from the initial Kshs 2,300, The price of Unga would not be affected since there was sufficient maize in the market retailing for Kshs 1,700 and Kshs 1,800.
“Currently, there is sufficient maize in the market selling @ between Sh 1,700 and Sh 1,800 per 90Kg per bag. With these interventions, I do not expect any changes in the existing price of Unga, ”He continued.
President Uhuru also directed investigative agencies to speed up verifying farmers’ details to ensure the timely payment of farmers.
He confirmed that following various government interventions and the good weather experienced in 2018, there was a bumper harvest of approximately 46 million bags. In addition to 2.5 million bags carried over from the 2017 harvest.
For this reason, the government would release 90kg bags of maize at Ksh. 1,600 and an additional 300,000 bags of animal feed at KSh 1,400 per bag.
The president also confirmed that the Ministry of Agriculture had completed auditing and verifying pending payments cane farmers.
He, therefore, ordered that pending payments to the farmers be processed with immediate effect.
