[Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture- Richard Lesiyampe. [Photo: the-star.co.ke]
The government has now ruled out importation of maize from neighboring.
Instead, the government will encourage farmers, through better prices, to sell their produce to NCPB as one way of addressing deficit which has been caused by poor harvest and post-harvest losses.
According to the PS in the Ministry of Agriculture Richard Lesiyampe, projections indicated that farmers would produce an estimated 36m bags. Lesiyampe said for years, the country had never met its maize demand forcing the government to trade with neighboring countries of Uganda and Tanzania. “Kenyans consume an average of 48m bags of maize against a production of 40m bags annually and its time that we resolved this,” he said. This PS was speaking during a three-day forum between the state and various stakeholders in the cereal sector in a Naivasha hotel. The PS noted that the government was keen to support the growers and millers adding that the country had ample land to grow maize. “For years we have not met maize demand in this country and we want to change that so that we can even start exporting to other countries,” he said. On his part, the chairman Cereal Growers Association Farnie Kruger termed the armyworm as one of the greatest challenges that the sector was currently facing. “Currently it’s very wet meaning we can’t use machines to spraying and we have been forced to manually spray so as to contain this pest,” he said. Transnzoia County Executive in charge of agriculture Mary Nzomo echoed the sentiments noting that no solution had been identified for the Maize Lethal Necrosis Disease (MLD) disease.