Kenya’s Competitiveness in Domestic Maize Production: Implications For Food Security

James Nyoro, visiting fellow at the African Studies Centre. He is an agricultural economist and since 1991 a senior research fellow with Tegemeo Institute, Egerton University in Kenya. His main work implies policy research and analysis on key economic issues such as the potential gains of market reforms and the monitoring of the reform process.

Kenya’s agricultural sector like the rest of the economy has performed poorly over the last decade. This poor performance is mirrored in the production of key food commodities and export products thereby adversely affecting food security, reducing employment opportunities and increase overall poverty in rural areas. The decline in food production has particularly taken place against a background of growing demand for food. Maize has been imported to bridge the ever-increasing gap between production and consumption. The imported maize has been cheaper than that locally produced. To protect the domestic producers, the government has applied tariffs thus raising the price of maize to the consumers. Raising prices of maize protects sellers of cereals -a relatively narrow segment of the rural population - but it penalizes consumers who have to pay high food prices. Kenya being an agricultural based economy must ensure that the bulk of its food needs is made available at prices at par with those from imports if the livelihood of these producers is not threatened.

The objective of Nyoro’s paper is to identify key strategies for Kenya to reduce the costs of production and those that could have an influence on the international competitiveness in maize production.