The Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries visited Embu County on a fact-finding mission as it intensified its probe into the distribution of alleged counterfeit fertilizer across the country.

The committee, led by Chairperson James Kamau Murango (Kirinyaga), visited the Embu National Cereals and Produce Board’s store from which 2,320 bags of the suspected GPC counterfeit fertilizer—labelled KEL Green NPK 10.26.20—had been sold and dispatched.

Josephat Muvevi, NCPB's Regional Manager shed light on the Board’s role as a fertilizer commercial agency that distributes fertilizer from the Government of Kenya.

"Farmers pay for the fertilizer including the GPC via eCitizen Pay Bill 222222," Muvevi explained.

Narrating his experience, Phineas Nyaga, an official of the North Ngariama Coffee Growers Cooperative, stated that they noticed an anomaly with the fertiliser’s composition.

"Ngariama Coffee Growers Cooperative was to buy some 4,200 bags for their members last year but were supplied with only 3,020 bags," Nyaga informed the Committee.

He explained that when he went to collect the remaining 1,180 bags in January, they collected a sample of four bags which they submitted to the National Agricultural Research Labs for analysis.

"When the results came out, it was found to have 7 percent nitrogen, 3.6 percent phosphorous and 7.26 potassium instead of the 10 per cent Nitrogen, 29 percent phosphorous and 10 percent potassium declared on the bag," Nyaga said.

The Chairperson—accompanied by Sen Alexander Mundigi (Embu), Sen David Wafula Wakoli (Bungoma), Sen Wahome Wamatinga (Nyeri)—cautioned that supplying fake farm inputs was equal to economic sabotage and that perpetrators should be treated as such.