Agriculture ministry projects annual maize production will rise 12.8 per cent to 44.9 million 90-kilo bags compared with 39.8 million bags last year.
Farming activities have largely remained immune to the devastating knocks of the Covid-19 pandemic whose containment measures have wreaked havoc in key sectors of the economy, supported by favourable rainfall.
Kenya is set for the biggest maize harvest on record in 2020 on the back of adequate rainfall, revised Ministry of Agriculture forecast show, potentially offering relief to families whose earnings have been hammered by coronavirus crisis.
In its November outlook, shared with the Central Bank of Kenya, the ministry projects annual maize production will rise 12.8 per cent to 44.9 million 90-kilo bags compared with 39.8 million bags last year.
An increase in maize output, a staple, will help stabilise prices and avert costly importation at a time the shilling has been depreciating against the US dollar.
The upward revision in maize stock forecast comes at a time consumers spent 5.30 per cent less on a kilo of loose maize flour which averaged Sh50 in November compared with the same month last year, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics reported on Monday.
A two-kilo pack of sifted maize flour, on the other hand, cost 0.82 per cent less to Sh115 on average, the data further shows.
Farming activities have largely remained immune to the devastating knocks of the Covid-19 pandemic whose containment measures have wreaked havoc in key sectors of the economy, supported by favourable rainfall.
The sector has also survived the scare of migratory locusts, which have so far not reached the country’s main farmlands.
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