Decline in maize supplies spells doom for consumers
Cargo trucks from Tanzania ferrying maize await offloading outside the Mombasa Maize Millers factory on September 13, 2020. Kenya receives a large amount of maize from Tanzania annually to boost its Maize stock.
What you need to know:
- Animal feed manufacturers have also decried a decline in the supply of maize in the market
- Millers are struggling with low supplies of the staple in the market.
Dwindling maize supplies from traditional source markets Tanzania and Uganda are set to pile inflationary pressure on human and animal feed prices in Kenya.
Kenyan millers said maize shipments from the neighbouring countries are gradually drying out, reversing a trend recorded over the past few months.
A report by Relief Web, an affiliate of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said the recent poor harvest in Tanzania and anticipated inadequate rainfall has impacted on food stocks in Tanzania amid projections that the number of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity is expected to increase.
Though Uganda has had good harvests, most of its maize stocks are headed for the famine-struck South Sudan where they fetch a good price due to scarcity.
“I can project that in the next two weeks if we don’t get good stocks from Uganda and Tanzania and if local farmers restrain from releasing their produce to the market, the price of flour will be impacted negatively,” said Rajan Shah, chief executive officer of Capwell Industries Limited.
Animal feed manufacturers have also decried a decline in the supply of maize in the market as farmers hoard harvests in anticipation of a better price in the future as the regional stocks get depleted.
Price of maize
Feed manufacturers in Kenya rely on maize and other protein supplements such as cottonseed cake and sunflower from Uganda for production.
“Cross-border imports normally play a key role in supplementing the limited crop that we have in the country; however, there has been a slow down on shipment of the produce from Tanzania and Uganda, hurting the price of maize locally,” said John Gathogo, the publicity secretary at the Association of Kenya Feed Manufacturers.
Millers are struggling with low supplies of the staple in the market, a move that has seen the cost of a two-kilo packet of flour jump to a high of $1.1(Sh121.47) from $0.95 (Sh108.34) in December.
Mr Shah said the current price of flour has affected the demand for the commodity on the shelf as it is beyond the reach of many households.
“The demand on the shelf has gone down because of the increasing cost of flour and households are struggling to buy,” said the CEO.
The price of a 90 kilo bag of maize in Nairobi has jumped to a high of $31(Sh3735.15) from a low of $23 (Sh2623.50) in December last year.
