Migori Threatens to Kick Out Tobacco Firms for Failing to Pay Kenyan Farmers

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 25 2018
Kenya Daily Nation
   
A tobacco farm in Kuria West, Migori County. The county government has threatened to kick out tobacco companies for not paying farmers. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary
Many tobacco farmers in the county are switching to other cash crops.
Some have gone into large-scale maize farming while others are planting sugar cane.

By ELISHA OTIENO

The Migori County Government has threatened to kick out tobacco companies that have consistently failed to pay farmers in time.

Agriculture Executive Valentine Ogongo said the county administration “will not sit back and watch farmers suffer every year due to delayed payment”.

FIRMS

Mastermind Tobacco owes local leaf growers more than Sh100 million while a tobacco merchant – Eastoback – has unpaid delivery dues amounting to Sh7 million.

“This is the last warning to the two companies…cooperate with our farmers or go elsewhere,” he told the representatives of the two companies in his office.

Mr Ogongo said only BAT Kenya “was trying to pay their dues on time”.

“The assembly is soon passing a Tobacco Control Bill, which will give us powers to register afresh firms allowed to operate in this county,” he added.

Representatives of the companies said they were making arrangements to offset the dues in the coming weeks.

TOBACCO

Many tobacco farmers in the county are switching to other cash crops that can fetch them quick money.

Some have gone into large-scale maize farming while others are planting sugar cane.

“In the absence of a serious leaf merchant who can pay us on time, tobacco is a doomed crop...I have uprooted the leaves on my farm to create space for cane,” said Mr Brodrick Kowino from Uriri Sub-County.

The three firms are not buying all the tobacco leaf produced by farmers, citing their low quality.

BUYER

Subsequently, thousands of acres of the tobacco grown in Suna West, Kuria West and Kuria East sub-Counties risk going to waste.

“The future looks very bleak…we do not know who will buy our tobacco,” says Mr Augustine Mwita, the national chairman of the Kenya Tobacco Growers Association (Ketofa).

“We are asking both the county and national governments to speed up the process to look for a new investor who is able to buy all our cash crop,” he said.

The farmers woes were compounded by the exit of Alliance One Tobacco Company in 2015. It was one of the main buyers.

The firm later moved to Uganda and Zimbabwe, citing poor leaf quality in Kenya.