Low Prices Discouraging Farmers from Growing Maize

Maize happens to be an important food in most homes in Kenya. It is eaten in form of grains, processed to offer various products ranging from maize flour for ugali and porridge, vegetable oils and at times, it is fermented to be used in making of traditional beer. Maize remnants after harvesting are used as silage after drying completely.

In the olden days, harvest time was a time for festivities and celebration since the community could come together and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Maize farmers in Uasin Gishu county and Trans-Nzoia County also wish for the same whenever they harvest the grain but that is never the case in the past few years. Most of them are large scale farers in the country and since maize happens to be the staple food in the country, it is expected that the farmers get profits after selling their maize.

This is not the case and thus, some of the farmers have been opting to stop maize farming and practice a different business venture that may be profitable.

Successful maize production depends on the correct application of production inputs that will sustain the environment and produce healthy produce. These inputs include land preparation, planting, soil tillage, using fertilizer, weeding, pest and disease control. All these processes have to be followed before harvesting can be done, which is in itself labor intensive.

After investing a lot from maize farming, farmers have nothing to smile about since when it comes to selling their harvest, they get very little and sometimes no profit at all. Some of these experiences have led to some of the farmers shifting to horticulture farming while others have turned to dairy farming as they find these ventures more profitable compared to maize farming.

One farmer from Uasin Gishu county disclosed that out of his 20 acres of land that he uses for maize farming, the most that he can get as profit after selling his maize is Sh7,000- 10,000. According to him, he should be getting more than 50 thousand shillings’ profit after subtracting all the expenses used.

There are many farmers who help feed the country and they are calling upon the government to look into it before it gets out of hand and every farmer turns away from maize farming which is an important mitigator of hunger in many parts of Kenya. They should be motivated to even plant more of the maize instead of shifting to other crops.

Article by Vera Shawiza.