Serving cold Mexican revenge on greedy Kenyan farmers

Farmers who were hoarding maize in Kenya cannot say they were not warned.

The arrival of 30,000 tonnes of duty-free white maize in Mombasa last week is a cold Mexican revenge for their greed. When government waived the 50 per cent import duty on maize, farmers were still dreaming about the millions of shillings they would mint from the government on account of the desperate drought situation.

As recently as April, this year, Agriculture, Livestock and FisheriesCabinet Secretary Willy Bett had begged farmers to release 8.5 million bags of maize needed for milling to flour ugali across the country, but they paid him no heed. They were angling for Sh5,000 for a 90 kg bag on account of the drought. When prices hit the Sh153 mark for a 2 kg packet of flour, farmers sharpened their teeth for more money.

Farmers were greedily asking for Sh5,000 for a 90 kg bag of maize without any regard to the profits for millers, transporters and traders, which eat up half the price.

They thought the government would go through the usual procurement rigmarole of tendering and supply, which would take anywhere from two to three months, and a further 40 days to sail the 9,721 nautical miles (18,003 kilometres) from Veracruz, Mexico, to Mombasa.

DRIVE HIGH

Landing 500 cargo planes bearing 57 tonnes of maize on a ship would definitely drive prices higher than anything Kenyans could bear in an election year.

Fortunately, government always knows better. Between February and May, this year, the Famine Early Warning System showed clearly that all of Kenya, with the exception of the former Western and Nyanza provinces as well as Nakuru county, was either food stressed or in crisis. Government extended an olive branch to farmers by declaring in January that there would be no maize importation in order to discourage speculators from circling the Kenyan coast with shiploads of food stocks.

Since food is a national security issue, the government could not keep telling everyone where its people’s staple was coming from, lest the Al Shabaab group hijack it on the high seas, and poison it in an act of terror.

President Uhuru Kenyatta knew what a bunch of whiners Kenyan maize farmers can be and decided to hold off any imports until the last packet of flour was off the supermarket shelf. Those who had hoped for yellow maize were shocked when Mr Bett inspected white endosperm, the cotyledon together with its plumule and radicle confirming that indeed the sample was from the original home of maize. Maize was first domesticated 10,000 years ago in Mexico, so Kenya was buying the real deal, not fake, genetically modified organisms that make eaters grow a sixth finger.

MASS STARVATION

Unknown to government detractors who were hoping for mass starvation to discredit the Uhuru Kenyatta administration, the maize had been chilling in Durban, South Africa, for a year to reduce moisture content to 14 per cent before being loaded onto the IVS Pinehurst for its final journey home in seven days.

Hunger is a stimulus for genius, just as necessity is the mother of invention. You have water boiling on the stove, and the supermarket shelves where maize flour is stacked are empty, and the creative juices start flowing. In the next six months, the government will subsidise millers by spending Sh6 billion to import 5 million bags of maize, working out to Sh1,200 for a 90 kg bag.

Farmers who grow maize can take a holiday as everybody rolls in globules of ugali.

Next time the government asks farmers to sell a 90 kg bag of maize at Sh2,300, they should learn to say thank you and promptly deliver the produce.

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