The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) is offering efficient post-harvest solutions to wheat farmers to minimise losses, maintain good wheat quality standards, and enhance food safety.
NCPB Managing Director (MD) Joseph Kimote asked wheat farmers who are currently harvesting in Narok to utilise NCPB facilities to access affordable and professional services in wheat drying, cleaning, grading, silo storage, and weighing.
Mr. Kimote said in a statement that the above services are available in Narok silos as well as in Nakuru and Nairobi.
“All the services are affordable and are aimed at supporting farmers to alleviate post-harvest challenges like wet grains, lack of storage, use of unsafe drying methods, poor-quality grains that lead to poor market prices, and use of unstandardised weighbridges, which do not reflect accurate weights of wheat and defraud farmers of the true value of their grain,” said Kimote.
He added that the Board has both mobile and fixed driers, explaining that whereas farmers require to visit the silo to utilise fixed driers, those who wish to have their wheat dried where it is convenient for them can contact the silo manager, Narok, so that the mobile drier can be taken to them.
“We encourage farmers to come together or aggregate their wheat so that it can be dried collectively,” explained Kimote.
The MD said that farmers who use NCPB storage facilities will benefit from safe storage as well as having the wheat marketed on their behalf.
“The Board has both conventional stores and Warehouse Receipt System (WRS) intake facilities,” said Kimote.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
