The administration of Kenya’s President William Ruto is facing scrutiny amid a fake fertilizer scandal involving senior government officials.
The results showed the fertilizer was counterfeit: It turned out to be diatomite packaged in government-branded bags and sold to unsuspecting farmers by the National Cereals and Produce Board, at the Agriculture Department.
The Kenyan Parliamentary investigation revealed that top government officials have been using the KEL Chemicals company to sell real fertilizer to farmers during the planting season.
On April 8, Ruto ordered his agencies to compensate all farmers who bought fake fertilizers under the government’s fertilizer subsidy program. He also instructed the nation’s law enforcement to identify and prosecute those involved in the corruption scheme.
Ruto came to power in Kenya with a pledge to uproot decades-long government corruption in this East African nation, which had lost billions of dollars through illicit deals across critical state agencies.
Kenya’s first lady Rachel Ruto took a different approach to soothing the scandal.
On April 16, while attending a Thanksgiving prayer service for Kenya in Nairobi, she told the parishioners, that prayer is better for agriculture than fertilizers, and gave an example – the neighboring Uganda:
“In Kenya, we see our President talk about fertilizers for our farmers. In Uganda, they do not use fertilizers. Their land is very fertile and there is enough rain.’’
That is false.
Uganda has been using fertilizers since World War II.
On February 27, the Ugandan government signed a $400 million deal with Industrial Promotion Services Kenya Limited, or IPS, and Norwegian Westgass Internasjonal AS to build a green hydrogen-based fertilizer plant in Karuma, northern Uganda.
The plant is projected to produce 200,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer annually, which will help to significantly reduce the country’s dependence on fertilizer imports.
In 2020, Uganda spent $32 million on fertilizer imports — a decrease compared to the $39 million in 2018.
Data from Trading Economics, a global trade analyses firm, shows that Uganda imports most of its fertilizers from Kenya, China, Norway, and Russia. In fact, in in 2021, Uganda imported fertilizers worth $4.8 million from Kenya.
Contrary to the Kenyan first lady’s assertions, just like in Kenya, the Ugandan government introduced subsidies on fertilizers to help farmers cope with the high commodity prices.
On May 25, 2023, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni told a public rally in Masaka, south of Kampala, that his government was considering subsidizing fertilizers.
Answering a question from John Kakande, a coffee farmer who had raised concerns about the high cost of fertilizers and the prevalence of counterfeit products, Museveni said he is intending to initiate a discussion in the cabinet regarding the possibility of fertilizer subsidies.
In August 2022, the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, allocated $20 million to the Ugandan government through the Feed the Future Uganda program to support farmers in lowering fertilizer prices.
Last year, 80,000 small holder farmers received fertilizer subsidies through the USAID program to help them combat food scarcity in the country.
For the last two years, they have grappled with acute fertilizer shortages and skyrocketing prices, forcing them to reduce their fertilizer usage, creating low crop yields and depleted soils.
Some of the Ugandan farmers started producing organic fertilizers to deal with the problem.
Furthermore, a study by the Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute, which specializes in plant research in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, shows that Uganda has been using fertilizers since World War II.
In the initial stages, ‘’Uganda’s soil was considered fertile, and farmers did little to improve productivity systematically,’’ the study said. However, the ‘’crop yields declined under continuous cultivation due to soil degradation,’’ after Uganda started planting exportable crops.
Quick-fix measures such as lime and fertilizers were introduced, and the Ugandan government later employed the first soil chemist in 1924, to test the soil and advise the government on the best ways to improve its quality.
This is not the first time the Kenyan first lady makes controversial religious statements.
On April 14, she claimed that because of prayers, the Kenyan national currency – shilling – had gained against the U.S. dollar. The Kenyan shilling had weakened against the dollar trading at 160 Kenyan shillings per dollar during the past year but recently it has shown signs of strength trading at 130.
