Demand for green maize likely to cause shortage of Unga next year.
East African grain council, Chief executive officer Gerald Masila, has stated the Demand for green maize likely to cause shortage of Flour.
Masila said,”As consumption of green maize increases, availability of the commodity will reduce and the prices will remain high. This is also likely to increase the deficit gap hence the high demand for imports.”
Timothy Njagi, a senior researcher from Tegemeo Institute added that the country’s maize deficit gap is between eight to ten million bags yearly.
Njagi stated,”For the country to be food secure, we require an estimate of 44 million bags of maize. On a good harvest, we get around 36 million bags so we import around 8-10 million bags of 90kg bags every year. This year, we may have to import more because production has been low due to the high cost of imports, especially fertilizer, pests and the severe drought.”
Masila further said that, according to economic trends, there has been high consumption and trading of green maize, which indicates that the quantity of dry maize expected in the stores and market will be lower than normal.
Masila said,”Our estimation is that we might only be able to get 60 percent of the normal harvest of about 33 million bags for the long rainy season. This means we will be facing another maize deficit in the coming year.”
“This is because even in our best year when we have a bumper harvest, we are still not able to meet our consumption requirement for maize and we always have a deficit of as high as 30-35. The deficit is met through regional imports from Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia,” he added.
Masila urged the government to source for alternatives even as drought ravages the country.
He said,”We should also start sourcing for alternative supplies for raw materials for feed to help ease the demand for food and feed.”
He also stated that traditional imports have found alternative markets.
“So now we have to compete with them. Tanzania has also gotten a new market in the Arab countries (who are using the maize for animal feed) at competitive prices. This is a red flag for us and as we also depend on the region to bridge the deficit gap, we still must look inward on how we can increase our production,” Masila added.
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