Kenya Should Invest in Canola and Sunflower as Alternatives

Catherine Wairimu inches along the aisles of a supermarket some 20 minutes’ drive from the Nairobi central district. Her face flinches after stopping at the cooking oil section and glancing at the prices.

Prices of crude palm oil have jumped by 33 percent due to the Ukrainian crisis, as sector players initiate efforts to urge the government to contain a further rise in cooking oils.

Manufacturers of cooking oil are now buying palm oil, the main raw material at between $1760 (Sh200,534) per metric tonne and $1980 (Sh225,522) after the escalation of Ukraine-Russia conflicts. Kenya is a large importer of vegetable oils such as sunflower oils, soybean, corn oil and commonly used crude palm oil mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, which produce more than 90 percent of global supplies.

Cooking oil is also bought in bulk for industrial use in the making of detergents and food stuffs such as bread.

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Understanding the Political Economy of Maize in Kenya and Expensive Supplies

By Timothy Njagi Njeru

Farmers have perennially agitated for higher prices due to high production costs. In response, government has intervened by setting maize prices, usually above market rates, for the strategic food reserve. The strategic food reserve was set up to stabilise food supply and food prices. On the other hand, consumers want to buy cheap maize flour, squeezing the government between producer and consumer demands.

Maize is the cheapest source of calories among the cereal grains, making up about 65% of total food calories consumed by households in Kenya. To meet this demand, maize is produced on 40% of the total crop area – mainly by smallholders.

Kenya’s annual production target has been 40 million bags or approximately 3.6 million tons. However, over the past decade, the average production has been well below 40 million bags, with the exception of 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2018. Last year saw the highest production of 46 million bags.

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More Silage, Less Food

Mr. Nicholas Mbatha

As farmers in Kenya chop maize for cattle feed, food security worries continue to grow. However the practice seems to be growing at a very high speed. To understand the reasons, Cereals Magazine’s Mary Mwende spoke to Mr. Nicholas Mbatha (below) an agronomist with Corteva Agriscience.

“Why silage maize grain and not normal maize grain”
She asked. Eloquently, Mr. Mbatha answered, “The production cost of growing maize for grain is high with little returns compared to that of silage maize. In Silage maize growing, nothing goes to waste, i.e. the cobs, the kernels, the stalks. In comparison, time taken from growing to harvest is short. Lastly, normal maize is subject to post harvest loses.”

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Maize Granaries of Kenya

Farmers tend to market their maize crop immediately after harvest in order to meet their financial obligations and to prepare for the next season. Due to this practice, maize supply becomes artificially higher than the demand thereby forcing prices to drop; only to increase within four months after selling to discuss this cereals magazine interviewed several growers in Trans Nzoia County.

Briefly discuss Maize growing in Trans Nzoia County and the country as a whole?
Maize farming in Trans Nzoia has been the main activity since colonial times and has always been described as the maize granaries of Kenya. The difference between now and then is that the big farms that used to produce bulk of maize are no longer there as most have been sold and sub divided in to small plots that can only produce subsistence crop for families and little as commercial crop. Big parastatals like ADC and Kenya Seed have set foot in Trans Nzoia as commercial producers of maize seed and maize farming but were run down and most of their farms subdivided to individuals as settlement schemes.

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