Wheat farmers are bracing themselves for another showdown with millers over the sale of their produce and importation of duty free wheat.

The Cereals Growers Association, held a strategy meeting in Eldoret at the Municipal Council Hall on Tuesday, which drew representatives from the nine wheat-growing sub-regions.

It came up with several resolutions, which they said would protect them from unscrupulous businessmen and safeguard them against tricks played by some millers at harvest time.

Duty free With the next harvest expected to begin in October, farmers resolved to lobby for the signing of an agreement with millers ensuring that their crop is bought up first before the government grants millers permission to source for duty free wheat imports.

The officials said millers had proposed that they be allowed to import three times the amount of wheat they buy locally. They said it was upon farmers to insist that the ratio be maintained at 2 to 1.

They also had another proposal which if agreed upon could see millers buying the whole harvest offered by farmers before importing wheat.

Tim Busienei, a director of CGA, told the meeting that a proposal they presented to the Ministry of Finance about sales was not fully honoured.

He said they had asked the Finance Minister to impose a 25 per cent duty on imports or charge $120 per metric tonne of imported wheat, whichever is higher.

However, during his budget speech, Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta announced that the imports would be charged at 25 per cent duty or $50 per metric tonne.

However the farmers conceded that they could not force millers to buy wheat at a dictated price and since there is an interdependence between the two sides, they are likely to resolve the issue.

The millers wanted the wheat at a cheaper price to enable them import from Uganda, Tanzania, DRC and other countries.

The farmers said that they produce 3.4 million bags against a consumption of six million bags and want the government to allow millers to import only three million bags.

However, the millers are said to be preparing to import up to six million bags.

They said all wheat should pass through the National Cereals and Produce Board to enable monitoring and to ensure that no surplus was imported into the country.

Mr Musa Barno, the chairman of Ngoma -- a small-cale farmers lobby from Uasin Gishu district-- said members mostly sold their produce of between 20 and 30 bags to millers and middlemen through away prices because they did not have the facilities to store the harvest.

KFA has stores in strategic areas, all connected by rail from Mombasa, Malaba and Kisumu, which are being targeted by grabbers.

The farmers added that a glut in the market would hurt their harvest and said some of the conditions set by millers before the wheat was bought were not reasonable and were only meant to shove them aside in place of the duty free imported wheat.

Eventually they resolved that they would not sell the wheat at less than Sh2,800 per 90 kilogram bag. Some had been selling at Sh2, 300 to millers.

Higher priceThe CGA officials cautioned the farmers against selling the wheat individually.

"Once you start selling the wheat at Sh2,300 instead of the agreed Sh2,800 then you will have set the price and no miller will buy it at a higher price," an official said .

In addition, the farmers also complained that the National Bank of Kenya (NBK) was in the process of selling core assets of the Kenya Farmers Association despite efforts by the directors and farmers to revive it.

"Being one of our major creditors, we owe the bank Sh300 million and up to now Sh110 million has been paid and we were in the process of negotiating with the government on how to clear the balance when we heard they were doing an inventory of our assets with a view to selling them", said Mr Kipkorir arap Menjo, a director of KFA.