Red tape aggravates food woes in East Africa

“Like in Kenya, most of the grains we get from Uganda usually come from northern region which is near to the border with Kenya and because of the current drought, we have seen maize coming all the way to Kasese, through Kampala into Kenya,” Mr Ruto told the Business Daily in an earlier interview.

Farmers however maintain that even lifting government bans on grain trade would not necessarily lead to free flow of grains as other governance issues come into play.

To sell grain across the borders, the EAC quality standards demand that a trade must show a phytosanitary certificate, usually obtainable only in the capital cities.

The grain must meet a moisture content level of 13.5 per cent (compared to 14 per cent international standard), while the level of organic or foreign matter must be minimal for the consignment to be allowed into any EAC country.

“EAC standards on grain is more stringent than what other authorities, including bulk buyers like World Food Programme or national cereal bodies like Kenya’s NCPB ask for and the most unfortunate thing is that very little is done to sensitise farmers about these stringent conditions to promote formal cross border trade,” said Mr Mugoya.

Kenya is currently grappling with a huge maize production deficit of 16 million bags following eight seasonal harvest failures.

Some in the Government, insist that the State should continue to provide the duty-free incentive to allow the private sector to source maize from Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) states while another group argues that tariff walls should be erected once again to compel millers to exhaust the limited stock available within the region first.

“We will continue to sell maize flour at current prices as long as the remaining 1.5 million bags that we secured before the lapse of the duty-free facility can last but the consumer must be ready to shoulder additional cost that will be incurred if import duty is reintroduced,” Ms Paloma Fernandes, the Cereal’s Millers Association CEO, said late last month.

Other than the official barriers, the region’s heads of state are expected to agree on a common an early famine warning system that will update member states of available food types or deficits from time to time.