This archive report was first published on 27 July 2019.
Maize is the cheapest source of calories in Kenya, making up 65% of the total food calories consumed by households. To meet this demand, maize is produced on 40% of the total crop area, mainly by smallholders.
Kenya's annual production target is 40 million bags, but the average production has been below this target for years, with the exception of 2012, 2013, 2015, and 2018. Last year saw the highest production of 46 million bags.
However, demand is rising, driven by population growth, and is projected to reach 60 million bags by 2025. This has created a gap between demand and domestic production, placing maize at the centre of the food security debate.
With this year's projected production unlikely to hit the 40 million target, there is an ongoing debate on whether to import maize from outside the East African Community to plug the gap. Importing from within the region is the first logical step, but countries can seek exemption and import duty-free from elsewhere when a pressing need arises.
Kenya also has a total ban on GMO products, meaning it can only import from GMO-free countries. The import debate has increasingly taken a political tone, with politicians from maize-producing regions in Kenya strongly opposing it.
They argue that imports would depress producer prices in the middle of the main harvest season. However, the government's response is that there's a need to import given the expected shortfall.
A key sticking point is contested data, with different stakeholders providing different numbers that support their arguments. The Ministry of Agriculture is the institution mandated to generate data on food security, but it has capacity gaps and does not do this well.
Recent projections by agriculture research firm Tegemeo Institute show that the country has enough stocks to get to the start of the harvest period in 2019, even under the most pessimistic scenario. However, the outlook suggests a deficit for the full season.
Government recently estimated the deficit at 12.5 million bags, but this pronouncement was met with scepticism by political leaders from the maize-producing regions who have insisted the data is inaccurate.
Early indications are that Tanzania has sufficient stocks to fill the deficit that Kenya faces, and additional stocks could come from Uganda. It is only after factoring in the inflows from the region that a decision can be made whether imports from outside the region are needed.
Any decision to import should be guided by three principles: verifiable data on the deficit, the timing of the importation, and ensuring decisions are not delayed until the stock in the country is depleted. Finally, all these decisions and processes should be transparent.
Timothy Njagi Njeru is a research fellow at the Tegemeo Institute, Egerton University.
