There is no maize dearth, says Kenya’s breadbasket
Workers clean maize at the NCPB depot in Elburgon, Nakuru County, on April 1. Traders, private millers and the NCPB have increased the price of a 90kg bag of maize.
Trans Nzoia County- one of the country’s breadbaskets, has ruled out a shortage of maize in Kenya as claimed by millers saying there are adequate stocks in the hands of growers.
The county’s chief executive officer for Agriculture Mary Nzomo said farmers are waiting for the price to be in their favour before they can release their stocks to the market.
This comes as scarcity of the grain in the market continues to be felt with the price of a 90 kilogramme bag now shooting to a high of Sh3,200 from Sh2,800 previously.
Dr Nzomo said she directed some of the millers to large scale farmers who have maize but they could not agree on the price.
“We are just from harvesting our main crop and there shouldn’t be talk of a shortage at the moment. Millers have been saying that there is a shortage but I told them that we have enough maize especially here in Trans-Nzoia,” said Dr Nzomo.
However, the CEC pointed out that the county recorded a decline in production of about 800,000 bags during the long harvesting season.
“Our production declined marginally from 5.6 million bags in last year’s season to 4.8 million in the current period,” she said.
The decline was occasioned by erratic rains experienced during the planting season this year and an infestation by fall armyworm that affected some farms in the region.
The county had estimated that production would be down by 20 per cent on account of poor rains and armyworm attack.
Dr Tim Njagi, a senior research fellow at the Egerton-based Tegemeo Institute of Research and Policy said it is unlikely that there is a shortage of maize in the country because farmers have just harvested the main crop.
“Farmers are just being strategic because they have realised that there could be more demand for the produce in the coming days and they want to release their stocks to the market when the prices are in their favour,” said Dr Njagi.
The price of flour has remained above Sh100 since January and only dropped below this cost for a short time before jumping again with two-kilo packet retailing at an average of Sh108 at the moment.
Millers have in the past two weeks raised concern over a shortage of the staple in the country saying that the move was likely to impact negatively on the cost of flour.
