Kenya’s food imports in the first four months of the year grew
by a third to Sh68.63 billion compared to a year earlier, reflecting the
country’s reliance on foreign markets despite improved weather.
Official
statistics collated by the Central Bank of Kenya shows food import bill
rose by 30.10 per cent in the January-April period compared with
Sh52.75 billion in the same period of 2017.
Kenya’s
reliance on foreign markets to feed her citizens has increased more than
four and a half times in a decade since food imports were valued at
just Sh15.09 billion in January-April period of 2008.
Rain-fed agriculture
Kenya’s overreliance on rain-fed agriculture has seen her increasingly resort to imports in the event of a drought.
A
biting drought last year, for example, prompted subsidies and waiver of
import duties between mid-May and December to smoothen purchase of food
such as maize, milk powder and sugar from abroad to meet demand and
ease prices.
Unscrupulous traders took advantage of
the duty-free food import window by the Treasury to truck in stocks of
staple maize they bought from countries such as Uganda and Mexico, and
selling them expensively to the National Cereals and Produce Board
(NCPB) at the expense of Kenyan farmers.
The maize
import syndicate that saw traders paid nearly Sh2 billion by the
national grain reserve left farmers in the country’s food basket region
of North Rift stuck with maize harvests, their main source of
livelihood.
NCPB chief executive Newton Terer resigned
on May 20 over the scandal, with the managers in charge of Lake,
Western, North and South Rift stores being suspended the following day
pending investigations by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission
(EACC).
Besides maize, other major food imports are
unmilled wheat and wheat flour, rice and sugar, according to the
Economic Survey 2018.
Import bill
Food
accounted for 11.64 per cent of the country’s total import bill between
January and April compared to 9.56 per cent in the same period last
year, the statistics show.
Total imports in the period stood at Sh589.62 billion, a growth of 6.86 per cent over a year earlier.
President
Uhuru Kenyatta has made food security, largely through increased
investment in irrigation, one of key priority areas in his legacy term,
together with universal healthcare, affordable housing and
manufacturing.
Machinery accounted for the largest share of Kenya’s imports at Sh146.59 billion, a drop of 15.03 per cent year-on-year.
Minerals
grew 25.96 per cent to Sh109.43 billion, while importation of chemicals
rose 9.93 per cent to Sh92.09 billion in the review period.
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