Government destroys Sh1bn, giving fake seed to sunflower farmers

Sunflower seeds. [Jenny Luesby]

The government last year disabled over 14,000 acres of farmers' land, costing taxpayers at least Sh250m to buy substandard seeds that then destroyed more than a further Sh680m of earnings for the farmers who planted them.

The Sh981m government project, which aimed to triple Kenya's edible oil production to save on expensive imports, foundered on the purchase of low-quality, field-harvested animal-feed seeds that were imported by the government from Zambia. Some of the seed failed to germinate, while the rest produced low-value, split headed-crops, scanty flowers, and almost no oil. The result was that farmers previously earning around Sh50,000 an acre from sunflower oil earned less than Sh1,500 from the government seed.