Unga Farm Care is on the spot after farmers recorded hundreds of deaths of their rabbits, after feeding them with feeds from the company.
One of the farmers who spoke to Kahawa Tungu revealed that in September 2020 she bought 50 bags of feeds from Unga Farm Care, and as soon as she started feeding her rabbits, 96 died in less than 13 days.
Maureen Wanyaga says that she also learned that other rabbit farmers in the country were experiencing the same, hence decided to contact the company.
However, the senior managers who visited her denied that the feeds had any connection to the deaths, only promising investigation.
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“I took it upon myself to call the big bosses at Unga and ask them what is wrong with their feeds. They came but began denying that their food had a problem so I went to the government chemist in Nairobi and had it tested and they gave me a report that has been disputed by insiders that’ the results they gave me were doctored to favor Unga,” says Wanyaga.
“I went to KEBS (Kenya Bureau of Standards) and they tested two of their feeds and it clearly showed the rabbit feeds had very high levels of aflatoxin…I also took the dead rabbits to the labs in Karatina and Kabete owned by the government and post mortem was done and feeds also tested and also showed very high levels of aflatoxin,” she adds.
According to audio in our possession, Nyeri CEC for Agriculture Mr James Wachichi acknowledged knowing about the problem as farmers had complained to him.
Reports seen by this writer show that the levels of aflatoxin were as high as 26.40 parts aflatoxin per billion parts of food (ppbs) against the maximum 10ppbs recommended by KEBS.
By the time of going to press, it is reported that the farmer had lost at least 500 rabbits due to the feeds.
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