There is a raging debate about the government's decision to import a large consignment of maize to stave off hunger brought about by one of the most dreadful droughts in a generation.
Trade CS Moses Kuria has been savaged in the past week because of his morbid choice of expression.
Maize is a political and emotional crop and a national staple about which a furious debate, or a scandal, is never too far whenever the nation takes to discussing its importation or its quality.
There are already political rumblings in northern Rift Valley, our breadbasket, about the wisdom, or the lack of it, in Kuria’s 10 million bags duty-free GMO maize.
Hunger is not a subject of debate. The government must be seen to move with speed and make sure no one gets into food distress on account of sluggish response to an emergency.
But even as Kuria makes the far-reaching decision to import the large consignment, the Kenyan farmer must be first in the queue.
The government cannot buy foreign maize before exhausting the stock held by our farmers in their stores across the country.
Kenyan taxpayers cannot be in the business of subsidising foreign farmers.
Quote of the Day: “Man knows that the world is not made on a human scale; and he wishes that it were.”
André Malraux
The French novelist died on November 23, 1976
