By Daily Nation
This one is to President Uhuru Kenyatta — and if he has to turn around the agriculture sector, and save one of his Big Four agenda initiatives from a dramatic collapse, he will have to address the cadmium question personally, and remove the cap placed on the standard on fertiliser imports.
Cadmium is a mineral used in the production of fertiliser. Recently, President Kenyatta bowed to pressure from commercial banks and removed the cap on interest rates. He can do it for agriculture, if he wants.
Most likely, the President has not been told the truth about why it is cheaper to grow maize in Ethiopia and Tanzania than in Kenya and must be listening to lots of cock-and-bull stories from the Ministry of Agriculture.
It has all to do with the politics of fertiliser procurement after the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) began playing in the super league with cartel networks that have for ages controlled the trade.
Let us not mince words here, there have been attempts to lock out cheap-priced fertiliser from the country and Kenya is at the centre of global market wars, and it is our farmers who are suffering.
