Kenyan maize imports make up 58pc East Africa grains trade

Kenyan maize imports account for 58 percent of the grain traded among East African countries between July and September, as poor weather affected the country’s production.

Latest data from the Ministry of Agriculture shows that the country imported 155,610 metric tonnes of the grain in the period, followed by South Sudan at 114,660 metric tonnes.

Tanzania contributed the most to the basket with 152,880 metric tonnes of exports (57 percent) while Uganda sold 117,390 metric tonnes of maize (43 percent) to Kenya and South Sudan.

Underwhelming rains in Kenya’s maize producing areas have affected production this year, with the Ministry of Agriculture projecting production will drop by 20 percent this year.

To bridge the gap, the government in March lifted a ban on maize imports from Tanzania, which had been barred due for containing high levels of aflatoxin.

The agriculture ministry said that the lifting of the ban saw imports rise nearly six-and-a-half times to 118,329 ninety-kilogramme bags in May from 16,137 a month earlier.

“The above-average volume traded was supported by seasonal exports from Tanzania to Kenya as increasingly fresh supplies from the May-to-August harvest entered the market amid high demand in Kenya due to expectations of below average October-to-December harvest,” the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Famine Early Warning Systems Network says in its latest report

“While supply was above average across many countries in the region, it was below average in Uganda which accounts for 14 percent of the production but 31 percent of the tradable surplus because of reduced carryover stocks from the previous year’s below-average harvest.”