Desperate maize farmers seek subsidies to plant in September after failed crop

Farmers are getting ready to clear large fields of withering maize plantations to plant again in September after a devastating dry spell caused massive losses.

A majority of the maize farmers in high-producing counties such as Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia as well as parts of Nandi, Bungoma and neighboring areas and South Rift among others are now preparing to plant a new crop in September with the hope of utilizing the expected El Nino rains.

But for the first time, farmers who have fed the country with its staple food are getting ready for a September maize gamble.

This is after adverse weather conditions wiped out the maize crop in two months.

If they plant afresh in September, which is normally the start of the harvest season across the breadbasket, farmers who are experiencing the worst drought in decades will harvest in February and March next year.

Farmers say they have resigned to fate but are calling for an urgent supply of government-subsidized fertilizer.

The subsidised input is normally delivered to the National Cereals and Produced Board (NCPB) from December, three months to the March/April planting season.

However, desperate farmers are seeking fertiliser replenishment in August ahead of the September gamble.

Stephen Kiplagat, a farmer in Moiben, Uasin Gishu is preparing his 20-acre farm for two crops – maize and sunflower.

The farmer says growing the two crops next month is a desperate move to produce food after 100 percent of his maize crop failed.

“I’m now clearing the entire maize plantation to plant maize and sunflower soon. We have been informed that the El Nino rains will be falling any time in September and I want to take the risk,” said Kiplagat.

Edward Kosgei, also from Moiben in Uasin Gishu says utilising the impending El Nino rains is a risk that he was willing to take.

“Growing maize during the El Nino rains period is risky but it will be the only option if we are going to produce food any time soon,” said Kosgei.

Kipsaina Kurgat, a Trans Nzoia maize producer who is among the farmers that had started to cut the failed crop to feed cows, has already lost over Sh500,000 this season.

"The stalks are not helpful to cows either but since there is no grass, we have decided to cut and feed the livestock," Kurgat told The Standard.

Kurgat is among farmers who have pinned their hopes on producing food during the upcoming rainy season.

His neighbour Josephat Kemboi is already battling depression after losing an entire 20 acres of maize crop to the devastating weather.

The distraught farmer says he had put an investment of Sh 500,000, expecting good returns.

Kemboi says, the area had rain in the month of March; since then, the dry spell has dominated and resulted in crop failure.

"We have been hardly hit. The crop has died off, and there is no hope even if the rains fall," said Kemboi.

He says the cost of returning to the farm at a time that should have been a harvest is impossible unless subsidies on inputs are enhanced.

Trans Nzoia produces six million bags of maize annually, according to the Ministry of Agriculture but a spot check shows that substantial sizes of farms under maize wilted under the drought.

"The government has to intervene and make diesel and farm inputs affordable to us to enable us to plant maize and other short term crops when the expected rains return," said Kemboi.

He proposes a further reduction of subsidised fertilizer from Sh2,500 to Sh1000 maize seed prices from Sh3000 per 10kg to half the cost to motivate return to farms in August and September.

Tom Nyagechaga, a Kenya National Federation of Farmers Kneff official says: "This serious crisis requires immediate intervention from the government, diesel and farm inputs prices have to come down to cushion farmers from the huge losses we have incurred as result of the dry spell."

Meanwhile some areas in the county have received rains, which however will not salvage already withered crops.

A team of experts from the Ministry of Agriculture camped in the North Rift region last week to assess the maize losses, but their report is not out yet.

Uasin Gishu cooperatives executive Philip Chebunet yesterday said farmers were giving the real-time information on the effects of the adverse weather condition.

Dr Chebunet said many farmers will be looking to plant short season crops such as potatoes alongside maize as they diversify by venturing into coffee to mitigate losses in future.

“The rains started in February and we want farmers to get ready for changing weather patterns caused by climate change. Farmers in a maize-producing county like Narok harvest maize in February. The trend is changing and we need to be at par with the changing patterns,” the county executive said.

He said Governor Jonathan Bii was involving the national government to find ways of cushioning farmers from the effects of the dry spell.