Kenya’s food import bill has fallen for the first time in four years, reflecting improved local output of crops such as maize and sugarcane on the State input subsidy programme amid relatively favourable weather.
Expenditure on food from abroad dipped by a double-digit rate to an estimated $2.065 billion (about Sh266.39 billion) in the year ended last December, provisional data from the Kenya Revenue Authority and Central Bank of Kenya shows.
The value represents a 12.87 percent drop from a record $2.37 billion (about Sh305.73 billion) in the year ended December 2023, marking the first contraction since the pandemic year of 2020.
Kenya’s spend on food imports has been climbing since 2021 surpassing $2.225 million (Sh287.03 billion) expenditure on machinery in 2023.
Increased importation of food items has been attributed to a biting drought whose devastating impact peaked in 2022, hurting the country’s food security.
That has, however, been reversed by an improvement in weather conditions in subsequent years and enhanced distribution of subsidised farm inputs such as fertiliser, helping expand domestic production of staple maize, wheat and sugarcane.
The provisional official data shows maize imports fell more than half (54.4 percent) to an estimated new low of $74 million (Sh9.55 billion) from $163 million (Sh21.03 billion) in 2023, the second year in a row the orders from abroad have fallen.
“Our efforts to secure food security and stability are already bearing fruit. Since February, we have distributed subsidised fertiliser to 6.45 million registered farmers in 45 counties, enabling them to increase their yields," President William Ruto said last November during his annual State of the Nation Address.
"This year we have procured and through e-vouchers distributed seven million bags of both planting and top dressing fertiliser to boost food production across the country. This intervention will see a projected increase in maize production to a record of 74 million 90 kg bags [in 2024].”
Traders, on the other hand, spent $262 million (about Sh33.80 billion) to ship in sugar —largely for industrial use— a 35.5 percent drop over $406 million (about Sh52.37 billion) the year before and matching the value for 2022.
Government-led reforms helped ramp up sugarcane production for local milling last year, narrowing the deficit which has over the years been bridged through imports from 21-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) trading bloc.
“This success is attributed to subsidised fertiliser for sugarcane farmers, an additional 500,000 acres of land brought under production, and improved management of the sector, which have revitalised production and brought the industry back to life,” Dr Ruto said.
Most countries within the Comesa bloc are net importers of sugar, but Malawi, Mauritius, Eswatini, Zambia and Zimbabwe are net exporters of the sweetener.
The food production crisis in 2022 was compounded by high cost of farm inputs such as fertiliser largely due to Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine which exacerbated global supply chain disruptions which were yet to fully recover from pandemic shutdowns which peaked in 2020.
This prompted the Ruto administration to allow waiver of import duties to smoothen purchase of key food items such as maize from abroad, in addition to implementing a fertiliser subsidy programme largely targeted at agriculturally productive counties.
