Traders and millers cut importation of maize by nearly two-thirds in the nine months ended September 2024 on increased domestic production of the staple helped by subsidised inputs and favourable weather conditions.
Data collated by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) showed traders shipped 160,184 metric tonnes of maize, an equivalent of about 1.78 million 90-kilogramme bags, in the review period.
That represented a 65.10 percent fall from 458,969 tonnes, or nearly 5.1 million bags, of the grain in a similar period the year before.
The volume of maize ordered from foreign countries in the review period is the smallest in eight years, going back to 2016 at 126,068 tonnes.
The reduced importation of maize, a staple in most households, follows a continued price cushion on key inputs such as fertiliser and seeds, an intervention authorities say has boosted yields.
President William Ruto last November backed the input subsidy programme to spur production to record highs of more than 70 million bags in 2024.
“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. 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,” Dr Ruto said in November during his annual State of the Nation Address.
“This intervention will see a projected increase in maize production to a record of 74 million 90 kg bags.”
Dr Ruto, who was voted in partly on the pledge to ease cost of living, took power in September 2022 at a time the country was undergoing the last phase of a biting drought, estimated to be the worst in four decades, which had resulted in poor food production in a country where farming is reliant on rainfall.
The food production crisis 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.
The KNBS data shows the volume of maize bought from abroad has been falling since 2022 when some 707,719 tonnes were shipped in the first nine months of that year.
This dropped 35.15 percent in nine months of 2023 to 458,969 tonnes.
Record stocks were, however, imported in 2017 when the country suffered another drought, prompting traders to order 955,096 tonnes of maize.
The KNBS data shows expenditure on maize imports dropped 58.09 percent in the nine months ended September 2024 to Sh8.46 billion, reflecting the plunge in volumes.
The data, however, suggests that the value of imported maize per tonne in that review period was about Sh52,786, a 20.08 percent rise from Sh43,958 a year earlier.
Latest consumer price data shows that the cost of maize meal went up towards the end of last year despite a reported jump in domestic production amidst lower volumes of imports.
“Prices of maize flour-sifted, fortified maize flour and maize flour-loose rose by 7.0, 5.8 and 1.8 per cent, respectively, between November 2024 and December 2024,” Abdulkadir Awes, the KNBS director for population and social statistics wrote in a statement on December 31.
Kenyan households paid an average of Sh160.58 for a two-kilogramme packet of fortified maize flour, a 5.8 percent rise over November’s average levels, but 8.7 percent cheaper than a year earlier.
