Potatoes will be sold in kilogrammes come July 1, if farmers give a nod to the government’s legislation proposal outlawing use of buckets and sacks.
Agriculture Secretary Mwangi Kiunjuri said standardising the price of potatoes at the retail and wholesale levels would help farmers determine the returns of their produce based on quantity and variety.
He said the law will criminalise use of plastic and metallic containers to determine pricing of a specific amount of potatoes.
“We want to launch a Potato Traceability System Potato as well as make it mandatory for all potatoes’ selling points to adopt use of weights as a measure of pricing,” Said the CS in a speech read on his behalf by Crop Development Principal Secretary Richard Lesiyampe during the Third national Potato Conference.
The move is a second bid after former Agriculture minister Christopher Kirwa gazetted similar supplementary legislation in 2004.
Value chain
But Mr Kirwa’s bid failed since local authorities failed to enforce it at produce markets.
CS Kiunjuri said come July 1, county governments as well as national government enforcement agencies will be tasked with ensuring compliance across the entire value chain.