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Kenya temporarily exempts import duties on corn and rice products (6 months / month Feb-Aug 2023) to prevent food shortages.

The Kenyan government has waived import duty on maize and rice for a period of six months to ease shortage of the cereals and avert a food crisis.

The prices of maize flour and rice in Kenya have gone up sharply in recent months due to low local production caused by a persistent drought and high cost of inputs such as fertiliser and diesel.

This even as the government recently lifted the ban on the growing and importation of genetically modified (GM) maize, which it said would allow the country to access much cheaper maize from the global market.

The Ministry of Agriculture has announced that traders will be allowed to import up to 900,000 tonnes of duty-free white maize and 600,000 of duty-free milled rice from February to August next year.

“(This will) enable the country to have adequate stocks to last until next harvest from July to August 2023. The duty waiver shall apply to white maize and milled rice imported into the country by August 6, 2023 by millers and traders,” said the State Department for Crop Development.

Kenya’s Trade Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria had last month announced that the government will allow importation of 10 million bags of maize amid protests by farmers who wanted the government to wait until they sell their produce from the current harvest season.

Maize prices remain high even as the ongoing harvesting of maize across the country is set to yield about 30 million bags against an annual consumption of approximately 45 million bags.

The cost of a two-kilogramme packet of maize flour has increased by 32.2 per cent over the past 12 months, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), and is retailing at over Sh200.

Kenya’s maize production has fluctuated in the past eight years, with its highest production being in 2018 when it produced 44.6 million bags, and the lowest being in 2017 when the country produced 35.4 million bags. The local maize production deficit has forced the country to rely on imports to address the shortage.