Farmers at the Mwea irrigation scheme are hoarding paddy rice in anticipation of better prices during the Christmas festivities.
Millers have been forced to double their purchasing farm prices from a low of shs.30 per kilo last season to shs.60 currently.
A market survey conducted by KNA at the busy Wang’uru town which is the main buying centre indicated that hundreds of traders have camped in the market to buy rice but some farmers were unwilling to offload the commodity.
Small scale traders alleged some big players in the market were exporting the pishori rice to South Sudan creating the shortage.
“There are many brokers not seen previously in the market and they are buying a lot of paddy rice and taking it to Nairobi for milling,” said Kagendo Ikianya.
Milled rice prices have however dropped from shs.185 per kilo in October to shs.120 per kilo but if farmers continue holding their crop the same are likely to go high.
According to a major miller in the region Njiru Mkombozi of Nice Millers ltd, farmers have been demanding better prices before delivering paddy rice to the factor.
“The demand for rice is very high and we are milling 100 tonnes per day which is our full capacity,” said Mkombozi in an interview yesterday.
Over 600,000 bags of 80 kg are expected to be harvested this season in the expansive Mwea scheme which is managed by the National Irrigation Board (NIB).
NIB Mwea manager Hosea Wendot said this was the best season in the recent years due to favourable weather and good crop husbandry.
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