Govt’s 2026 wheat price rise came too late for farmers’ harvests, feeding speculators

“I always sell to these brokers and aggregators who sell to bread and other wheat products producing companies.The government delayed in announcing the new prices, so, by the time they were announcing, I had already sold the harvested wheat to the brokers who buy and store it waiting for the government prices,” he said.

“I have to sell early to offset some of the loans I take to buy pesticides, pay workers and stuff. So I can never wait for the government prices. But also, generally, if you see the time when the government announced the hike of prices to Sh5,100 in the last week of August, almost all the farmers had harvested their wheat and only few were finalizing their harvests. The timing is weird, but I personally understand because the government never buys the wheat or, let me say, they actually did not have a plan to buy wheat from farmers this year, because that timing for the price hike announcement was so off,” he said.

“So, generally, if you look into it, the new wheat prices did not get to us farmers. I am saying that because, for me, I sold the wheat I harvested at Sh4,700 and I know some of my neighbours who sold it at Sh4,500. The same Sh4,500 is what we have been selling at, so no day difference at all, even with the new announced prices,” he said.

William and the rest of the farmers in Narok would love to directly supply to millers, he said, but most of them have no stores in the area and instead depend on aggregators and brokers, who the millers pay handsomely.

“I have never seen any of them (the millers) here on the ground to buy the wheat directly from me or my neighbours. The millers never have specific stores here in Narok where we can sell the wheat directly to them. The brokers are the ones who buy in for their stores and sell from there to millers,” he said.

For William, who started farming wheat in 2021, the only year he got a good price was in 2024 when a 90Kg bag was retailing at Sh5,000, which was the highest in the five years he has been farming.

However, the key barrier in getting more is farmers’ lack of storage, with poor storage creating extra losses on top of the rising losses they are already making to the wheat disease, rust.

“You see, as a wheat farmer I always opt to sell at that Sh4,500 after I harvest in July, because the government may have not announced the prices, but I have no proper store to keep the produce until the price goes up. I have no option but to sell it almost immediately after harvest,” he said.

“Say I have harvested 200 bags, like I did last year, and I have no store, and maybe I have also harvested and it is raining heavily, to prevent destruction and further losses from what I harvested despite the rust situation, I opt to sell at the available prices and market and thank God for whatever sale I’ll get. Other times, maybe it’s the debts or loans that I have that I need to pay, I just have to sell and clear it all to be free. There are many reasons why wheat farmers really don’t get enough from their produce despite all the effort put,” he said.

For William, getting a miller buying directly from him would be a huge relief, he said.

“But to the government stores or Cereal Board no, because they take too much time to pay. For me as a smallholder, I cannot even dare to do business with the government as I’ll end up not doing the business anymore due to pending bills. They do not pay and they start taking you in rounds that ‘oooh, let’s take it to parliament for a supplementary budget’ and other short stories and by that time you want to sell the produce and prepare for the next season,” he said.

“It is better to supply to the aggregators or millers because the most number of days they take to pay is three days maximum. But aggregators and brokers seem to have a very deep connection with millers, in that you’ll never see millers on the ground. It would be so nice to have them on the ground whereby you just know that their store is in a certain place and take the produce there,” he said.

Even though William and other wheat farmers in his county started harvesting their wheat in July, there were some who delayed harvesting until mid-August, but even they had sold by the time the government was announcing the new price, meaning it was solely the brokers and aggregators with storage who benefited, and as a windfall that made no difference to volumes.

“If they wanted it to benefit us, by around April and May, they should announce the new prices,” said William.