Maize Prices Surge As 90KG Bag Hits 6500 in Kisumu And Other Towns

Kenya’s maize market is sending mixed signals this month, with grain prices sliding in some regions on the back of a fresh harvest and cheap imports, even as they remain stubbornly high in others.

Prices vary sharply depending on where you look. In parts of western Kenya, fresh green maize is fetching between Ksh 3,000 and Ksh 6,500 for a 115-kilogram bag, with Eldoret recording the lowest prices at Ksh 3,000 and Kisumu the highest at Ksh 6,500.

Nakuru and Kitale sit in between, at roughly Ksh 4,500 and Ksh 6,000 respectively, while Busia trades closer to Ksh 4,000. Traders say the arrival of the new harvest is beginning to ease flour prices in some western counties, even though raw maize costs remain elevated in several areas.

Meanwhile, dry, storable maize, the kind traded through commercial channels and cereal boards, has told a very different story in recent months.

Grain traders reported that a 90-kilogram bag of dry maize fell from around Ksh 4,600 to Ksh 4,000 over two months earlier this year, as a wave of imports from Zambia and Tanzania flooded the market. That decline has squeezed farmers’ margins even as it brought relief to consumers, with maize flour prices easing in tandem.

The current picture caps a volatile year. Farmgate prices stood at roughly Ksh 3,200 per 90kg bag in mid-2025. By January 2026, the government stepped in, with the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) setting a floor price of Ksh 4,000 per bag to protect farmers amid tightening supplies.

Prices kept climbing anyway; by February 2026, they had surged to about Ksh 4,500 per bag, a jump of roughly 41 percent in seven months, driven largely by drought-hit harvests and dwindling commercial stocks.

Some market trackers now put average board prices for dry maize as low as Ksh 2,700 per 90kg bag in certain trading centres, such as Migori, reflecting just how uneven the recovery has been across regions.

Two forces are behind the recent softening. First, imports: Kenya had brought in around 30,000 tonnes of maize by early 2026, with authorities signalling room for up to 500,000 tonnes more, largely to plug the gap left by last year’s drought-hit harvest.

Zambia, which enjoyed its own bumper season, has emerged as a major new supplier alongside traditional source Tanzania. Second, the domestic harvest itself: with rains normalising, farmers are bringing new grain to market, which is gradually working through the backlog of demand that drove prices up earlier in the year.

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