Kenyans threatened by starvation

The Government is appealing to animal feed manufacturers to consider using yellow maize as their raw material to ease pressure on white maize.

And to entice them, the Ministry of Agriculture has offered to grant the manufacturers licences to import yellow maize duty-free.

Through a paid-up advertisement mid last month, the ministry appealed to traders who manufacture animal feeds to utilise the opportunity to acquire their raw material more cheaply.

Produce certificates

Asked whether the yellow maize will not get into the market for human food, Agriculture permanent secretary Romano Kiome said they would be strict on whom to allow to import the said maize.

“The only people we will permit to import as stipulated in the advertisement are those that have certificates to produce animal feeds. And they have to produce the certificates to the ministry officials,” maintained Dr Kiome.

The PS, however, was optimistic that importation of yellow maize by animal feed manufacturers would release more white maize, which has been scarce for the last couple of months.

The animal feed producers usually use about 200 tonnes of maize annually.

The Association Of Kenya Feed Manufacturers’ secretary general, Mr Martin Kinoti, said that if they got the one million bags of maize, the stocks would last about six months.

The yellow maize is projected to cost about Sh2,400 per 90 kg bag.

“We intend to liaise with the main importers and some of our large users to ensure that speculators and middlemen do not come into the market to exploit our members and increase our cost of doing business,” said Mr Kinoti, who is also the managing director of Nutrimix Limited.

The secretary general challenged farmers to consider producing yellow maize locally for animal feed millers.

“A big challenge has been the unavailability of seeds free from genetically modified organisms,” he said.

According to Mr Kinoti, most of the yellow maize the world over is genetically modified, and the Bio-safety Bill needs to be finalised and interpreted for the producers when it becomes law in Kenya.

Practically, there is no difference between yellow and white maize other than the yellow pigmentation, which is an indicator of higher levels of vitamin A precursors, good for egg-laying chickens.

The move comes at a time when there is uncertainty over the importation of white maize, after maize flour millers boycotted a Government offer to import the staple food.

At the same time, Agriculture minister William Ruto, in a move to ensure that the available maize is utilised locally, invoked Section 30 of the National Cereals and Produce Act to ban exports of the cereal.

Lease land

In a special issue of the Kenya Gazette dated December 30, the minister directed: “No person shall export any part or product of maize, whether or not it has been ground or sifted into flour, or otherwise treated, to any country.”

In related news, farmers have condemned the Government’s intention to lease about 100,000 acres of land to Qatar to grow food for her citizens.

Eastern Africa Farmers Federation Union leader Philip Kiriro said it was immoral to give resources to resolve another country’s crisis before sorting out Kenya’s.

“Are we saying that a foreign government can produce food here and feed its own people and the Kenyan Government cannot support us to feed ourselves? We can even produce yellow maize on such land,” he said.