Farmers in the North Rift region will now be able to access Baraka Fertilizer under the government’s subsidy program.
The government rolled out the subsidy program a few weeks ago that enables farmers to access fertilizer through the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) at a lower cost.
Under the program, farmers have been accessing fertilizers from local dealers among them Mavuno and OCP.
The Baraka Fertilizer will now be part of the fertilizer that farmers will be able to access.
Produced at the Ngeria-based Baraka Fertilizer Factory on the outskirts of Eldoret town, run by Toyota Tsusho, Baraka Fertilizers are balanced nutrition blended fertilizers suited to Kenyan soil and crops.
“We are now getting Baraka fertilizer for distribution to farmers under the subsidy scheme after the manufacturer joined the firms that are supplying us with the products,” NCPB communications manager Titus Maiyo said.
A 50-kilogram bag of fertilizer at NCPB under this initiative costs Ksh2,800, compared to the market price of Ksh6,200.
The government allocated Ksh5.7 billion to facilitate the subsidy program that targets to supply at least 2 million bags of fertilizers to farmers.
But despite the availability of the subsidy program, farmers have been complaining about the lack of the commodity at the NCPB depots.
In a move to address the issue, the cereals board last week said it was diverting fertilizers from other regions to the North Rift where farmers have already started planting.
With the entry of Baraka Fertilizer, farmers will now have a wide range of fertilizer types to pick from.
Baraka Fertilizer is a crop-specific and balanced-nutrition NPK fertilizer.
It is manufactured at the factory that started production in 2016 following a memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Toyota Tsusho and the Kenyan government in 2014 to manufacture fertilizer.
