Rice traders at Wang’uru town in Mwea. Farmers want the government to start a rice stabilisation fund to cushion them against cheaper imports and climate change.

 

Rice farmers in Mwea now want the government to set aside a crop stabilisation fund as it did with sugarcane and maize growers in order to cushion them from sudden price changes and low harvests mainly triggered by changing rainfall patterns.

Despite Mwea being the biggest source of the aromatic pishori rice in East Africa, it is not able to produce enough to feed the country giving room for imports, which are often cheaper. This has been a major distortion in the pricing of high-quality rice, forcing traders to blend it with imported in order to manage the pricing.

Mwea provides only 20 percent of the national rice needs, with the bulk of the rest being imported from countries like Pakistan, which is also one of the major buyers of Kenyan tea. A lady farmer Jenifer Wangechi said it is discouraging for the rice farmers since the importers always time to ship in the cheap commodity when Mwea farmers start harvesting their crop.

Fall back option

“This is why we are asking the government to avail to us, as a matter of urgency, the crop stabilization fund to cushion us from the negative effects caused by the flooding of the rice market with cheap imports year in year out,’’ she said.

Patrick Muriuki, the Managing Director of ICOSEED, a local agriculture-focused NGO said the undue competition the Mwea rice farmers are subjected to by the rich importers of the cheap rice should be cushioned through such a fund.

He said though farmers’ welcome competition, the bigger problem is flooding into the local market with low quality and cheap imported rice that is mixed with local pishori and sold to consumers as produce of Kenya.

The National Irrigation Board Mwea Scheme Manager Innocent Ariemba admitted some traders were using unorthodox means to bring in cheap rice grains.

Ariemba, however, said the way forward is to relook at the rice importation policy afresh and also introduce the crop stabilization fund.

He said some traders were misusing the existing import policy by importing broken rice under the guise of animal feed which they later use to adulterate with the high-quality grade from Mwea and sell cheaply as the Mwea Pishori.

The manager said during the just ended harvesting season, a total of one million bags were harvested but farmers have no market due to the flooding with the cheap imported rice.

He said policy makers should in the wake of this development act fast for the interests of the small scale rice producers.

 


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