•Gerald Masila, Eastern Africa Grain Council [EAGC] CEO said there is a high demand for green maize due to the shortage of maize and drought.
•“As consumption of green maize increases, availability of the commodity will reduce and the prices will remain high. This is also likely to increase the deficit gap hence the high demand for imports,” he said.
Image: EAGC
Farmers have been selling green maize which could increase the country’s annual deficit.
Gerald Masila, Eastern Africa Grain Council [EAGC] CEO said there is a high demand for green maize due to the shortage of maize and drought.
“As consumption of green maize increases, availability of the commodity will reduce and the prices will remain high. This is also likely to increase the deficit gap hence the high demand for imports,” he said.
He spoke during a stakeholder validation forum for the Warehouse Receipt System Council.
The council was inaugurated in July 2020 to establish, maintain and develop a warehouse receipt system for agricultural commodities produced in Kenya.
Currently, a 90kg bag of maize is retailing at an average of between Sh4,500 to Sh5,000.
Timothy Njagi, a senior researcher from Tegemeo Institute said the country’s maize deficit gap is between eight to ten million bags annually.
“For the country to be food secure, we require an estimate of 44 million bags of maize. On a good harvest, we get around 36 million bags so we import around 8-10 million bags of 90kg bags every year. This year, we may have to import more because production has been low due to the high cost of imports, especially fertilizer, pests and the severe drought,” said Njagi.
Masila said they have noticed a lot of consumption of maize in its green form because of the maize shortage and the hunger situation in the country.
He added that this is unlike other years when maize in the farm would go all the way to harvest and dry. At least 95 percent of the crop would end up drying in the stores.
This time round, Masila said there has been high consumption and trading of green maize, and this means the final quantity of dry maize expected in the stores and market will be lower than normal.
“Our estimation is that we might only be able to get 60 percent of the normal harvest of about 33 million bags for the long rainy season. This means we will be facing another maize deficit in the coming year," he said.
"This is because even in our best year when we have a bumper harvest, we are still not able to meet our consumption requirement for maize and we always have a deficit of as high as 30-35 percent. The deficit is met through regional imports from Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia,” said Masila.
He said that both the National and County Governments should get data on the estimated maize harvest by the end of December.
“We should also start sourcing for alternative supplies for raw materials for feed to help ease the demand for food and feed,” he said.
Masila however said according to EAGC regional crop calendar outlook, the availability of maize imports is not as much as it has been in the past.
He explained that this is because traditional sources of imports for Kenya which are Uganda and Tanzania have found alternative markets in DRC and South Sudan, which are paying premium prices because of the global maize shortage.
“So now we have to compete with them. Tanzania has also gotten a new market in the Arab countries (who are using the maize for animal feed) at competitive prices. This is a red flag for us and as we also depend on the region to bridge the deficit gap, we still must look inward on how we can increase our production,” said Masila