NAKURU, KENYA: Pyrethrum farmers in Nakuru and Nyandarua Counties have threatened to uproot the crop if the Ministry of Agriculture fails to liberalise the sector.
They have given the State a month to provide licenses to private processors and allow competition anticipated to yield quality flowers.
The farmers claimed they are not happy with the way the Government is handling the issue of liberalisation of the sector, which they added, was affecting production.
They say the industry is a monopoly being run by the Pyrethrum Regulatory Authority (PRA), which goes against farmers expectations for liberalisation to improve production and guarantee better market prices.
Wilson Kiarie, Nakuru County Pyrethrum farmers representative, said it is clearly stipulated in the new Pyrethrum Act of 2013 that the main function of the authority is to regulate the sector by making sure all competitors in the industry operate within the law.
"Farmers are discouraged to invest in an industry that is causing them huge losses. It will, therefore be better, for them to uproot the plant and venture into other crops," said Kiarie.
Kiarie said the current management was not issuing licenses to private processors because of fear of threats to the Authority.
"The Authority is the player and the referee at the same time thereby denying investors opportunity to enter the already skewed market," said Kiarie.
Mr Kiarie further argued that the quality of seeds issued by the pyrethrum authority was not good enough and blamed it on the monopolistic nature of the supplier.
Njuguna Muregi, a representative of Nyandarua farmers, on his part said PRA has for the last six months been purchasing pyrethrum flowers from Tanzania, which is denying local farmers opportunity to improve production.
"How can the Government purchase flowers outside the country when there are willing farmers to invest in the sector?" he posed adding the Government had not done enough to revive the industry.
Muregi said Oljorok and other parts of the country should be given out to other propagators to help farmers from the two regions.
The farmers at the same time criticised the allocation of Sh300 million to the sector for the 2014/15 financial year saying the amount was not enough to fund the industry.
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