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Citizen Weekly

Sunday 14 December 2014

NYANDARUA POTATO FARMERS EXPLOITED IN KONGOWERA

A section of Mombasa residents who hail from Nyandarua county have protested the exploitation of farmers from their home county at the Kongowea wholesale market.
The residents led by Francis Kamau, the Coast chairman of Kenya Street Traders Association, have accused middlemen of buying Irish potatoes at a throw away prices from poor farmers in Nyandarua county and selling at exorbitant prices at Mombasa’s Kongowea wholesale market.
Speaking to Weekly Citizen in Mombasa, Kamau commended the Nyandaruqa county government for enacting a law to limit the packaging of the potatoes in 50kg bags instead of the 150 kg saying the move is the first step towards checkmating the cartels that have over the years exploited the hardworking farmers.
“These brokers have become millionaires overnight while our own brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers who toil in shambas every chilly morning to make ends meet continue to become poorer as a result of exploitation. This is unacceptable and I commend the Nyandarua governor Waithaka Mwangi for being sensitive to this issue that has gone for decades,” said Kamau.
He urged the Nyandarua county leaders to make a fact finding tour of the Kongowea market to witness how their people were being exploited. He suggested that the county government enters into a memorandum of understanding with Mombasa county to help streamline things for the peasant farmers.

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