About 200 tonnes of maize is rotting in the Hola Irrigation Scheme after the National Cereals and Produce Board failed to buy it.
More than 650 farmers in the scheme are now watching helplessly as their efforts go to waste.
Millions of shillings were spent to revive the scheme under the National Economic Stimulus Programme late last year.
President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga were the chief guests in Hola during the launching of the project.
Farmers said at the weekend they could not believe that it was the same government that was frustrating them just three months after urging them to grow the food crop to alleviate hunger in the country.
Mr Said Mugawa of the Hola Farmers Cooperative Society said: “What are we supposed to do? How can the government do this to us? How can it tell us to invest so much in agriculture only to abandon us and let our crops rot?”
Mr Mugawa said efforts to have the NCPB buy their crops have failed.
The farmers have even sent delegations to the Ministry of Agriculture headquarters in Nairobi to beg it to buy the grain in vain. “We are always told the government has not given NCPB money to buy our maize. That is why they have not come around in Hola,” he said.
The farmers put 850 acres under maize out of the 1,240 acres they cultivated.
They had a bumper harvest in December after 20 years of no activity following the collapse of the scheme when River Tana changed course.
“Our stores which can accommodate only 3,000 bags of maize are full. A lot of maize is still on the farm, rotting. It has been there for more than one month,” said Mr Mugawa.
The Hola Farmers Advisory Committee chair, Ms Fatuma Galgalo, said they fear the maize may get infected.
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