To meet the severe .shortfall of local supply and check the soaring prices of maize, Kenya’s Treasury is set to open a window for duty-free import of 12.5 million bags of maize. The prices shot up to such an extent that prices for a two-kg packet of flour hit Ksh125 ($1.22)
Ministry Agriculture informed the Senate that the Ministry proposes to allow the imports of maize by private companies for a period of three months from the end of this July till October end, in time for the next harvest. The imports will include ten million bags of white maize for household consumption and 2.5 million bags of yellow maize for processing of animal feeds.The country faced a shortage of maize stock due to the failure of rainfalls. The recent drought was also experienced in Uganda, Malawi, and Zambia. These countries are the major sources of imports that Kenya relies on to fill up the gap of its maize deficit. Due to limited availability, Tanzania and Zambia are not allowing the export of maize. According to sources, the only other country that can offer non-genetically modified maize with sufficient surplus for export that can meet the requirement of Kenya is Mexico
In June 2017, also Kenya was hit by a maize shortage when government had to import the grain to cushion consumers against the high cost of flour which had skyrocketed to Sh150 per a 2kg packet.
