The government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, has announced plans to gazette a 50 per cent duty waiver for the importation of 5.5 million bags of yellow maize to address the maize flour shortage in Kenya.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe, while addressing the press on Friday, April 4, expressed concerns over the growing competition between animal feed millers and maize millers for human consumption due to the limited maize grain stocks available in the country.
According to Kagwe, as a result of the increasing demand, the price of a 90-kilogram bag of maize rose by about 26 per cent over the past three months.
The CS noted that the upward trend in maize prices directly impacted the cost of production, prompting millers to pass the increased costs onto consumers through higher maize flour prices.
“To address this, the government will gazette a 50 per cent duty waiver for the importation of 5.5 million bags of yellow maize over one year,” CS Kagwe announced.
The agriculture minister reiterated that the initiative would be carried out by a vetted list of qualified animal feed millers with sufficient capacity.
Kagwe maintained that the objective of importing yellow maize was to reduce pressure on local white maize stocks by shifting animal feed millers to yellow maize.
However, the former Health CS clarified that the yellow imported maize would not be genetically modified (GMO) grains, dismissing concerns from Kenyans.
“This will allow millers focused on human consumption to access available maize at fairer prices, ultimately leading to reduced production costs and more stable unga prices for consumers,” the CS assured.
To prevent a future shortage of maize grains in the country, Kagwe encouraged farmers to consider cultivating yellow maize to meet the domestic demand of over 1 million metric tonnes required annually by the animal feed industry.
According to him, the local cultivation of yellow maize would help reduce dependency on imports and contribute positively to the economy.
The latest development comes three days after the National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) listed fortified maize flour as one category of essential commodities whose prices rose significantly between February and March this year.
KNBS, in its monthly survey report released on Tuesday, April 1, revealed that the price of maize flour rose by 2.9 per cent over the last month.
The bureau also listed kale, potatoes, maize grain, tomatoes, beef, electricity, local flight tickets, and cooking gas among commodities whose prices had also increased.
