Maize production jumps 38.8pc in 2023 on good rains
Maize production increased by 38.8 per cent from 34.3 million bags in 2022 to 47.6 million bags in 2023 on improved weather conditions and State interventions, latest State data estimates.
According to the Economic Survey 2024, the surge was informed by expansion in area under crop as farmers anticipated higher prices for their produce, coupled with enhanced government interventions, especially the fertilizer subsidy programme.
“This was attributed to expansion in area cropped, promise by the government to buy maize from farmers under the guaranteed minimum returns principles,” said the report released by Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS).
During that period, wheat production decreased by 16.1 per cent from 368,700 tonnes in 2022 to 309,500 tonnes in 2023, as farmers opted to cultivate maize farming.
In 2023, import volumes for food commodities rose significantly except maize. However, the bumper harvest saw quantities of imported maize decline from 793,800 metric tonnes in 2022 to 507,900 metric tonnes in 2023.
Growing import bill
This is as President William Ruto vowed to end maize imports by encouraging further local production in excess of 60 million bags annually to meet a demand in the range of 50 million bags recorded in 2019.
Speaking to Kenyans in the US Diaspora on Monday night, he said the growing import bill; new agricultural production policies, and a favourable weather condition for maize growing, are attributable to the new paradigm shift.
“We are going to invest in production. By next year, we are not going to be importing a grain of maize. We will move on to rice, wheat, and in five years, the one billion dollars we use in import of edible oils,” Ruto declared in a meeting with Kenyans in the United States in Atlanta on May 20.
