By Gitonga Marete
Farmers in macadamia growing counties want the government to lift the ban on export of unprocessed nuts, saying local buyers are offering low prices for their produce.
The Ministry of Agriculture banned export of in-shell nuts in 2009, which was expected to build capacity for local processing and create jobs. Section 43 of the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA) prohibits the export of macadamia and cashew nuts in their raw form. The Cabinet Secretary in charge of Agriculture can, however, open the export window as it happened in November 2023 when Mithika Linturi was the CS. In 2016, the ban was also lifted for six months.
Farmers in Embu, Murang’a, Kirinyaga, Nyeri and Meru now say the law is discriminative to growers, arguing that they cannot dispose of their produce profitably.
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