Farmers Party of Kenya Chairperson Irungu Nyakera has opposed the government plan to support maize imports at the expense and detriment of the local farmer who ekes a living out of maize growing.
Nyakera observes:
“Farmers Party, a constituent party within Kenya Kwanza, is shocked that the government has entered into agreements with Zambian farmers to grow maize and other staples for our local market. 65% of Kenyans earn a living from farming and 70% of the rural population depends on farming. Why then would we go to Zambia to farm yet we have farms, farmers, and unemployed youth here in Kenya who can be utilized for that very purpose?
A country that can’t feed itself is not free – food imports have moved from 10% to 17% over the last decade! We as Farmers Party will be moving to court over the next few days to stop the government from entering into this contract and forcing the government to invest in farmers locally.
Farmers Party of Kenya Party leader Irungu Nyakera has reiterated the need for the government to capitalize on empowering the local farmer instead of rushing for cheap imports, Mr. Nyakera notes.
“At the height of the Galana Kulalu project, the first harvest produced 30 bags per acre against a target of 40 bags an acre. Galana Kulalu covers 1.75mn acres meaning that if the same efforts had been replicated across the entire project, it had the capacity of producing between 52.5mn to 70mn bags.
Kenya has approached Zambia to sell it 12mn bags of maize and Zambia has allocated Kenya 49,000 acres of land to grow white maize and import it to Kenya. This then begs the question to those saying Kenya doesn’t have arable land, if Galana Kulalu has the capacity to grow up to 7 times this demand, why not invest in our farm, our farmers, and our youth/ employees? Is the government being lazy or just mischievous?
“Say YES to Farmer empowerment and NO to duty-free imports, We will stand with the local farmers we say NO to the Zambia maize deal, let’s BUILD LOCAL.”
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