Inside Kenya’s 3 Million-Tonne Maize Gamble, What It Means For The Price Of Unga

Kenya is heading back to the international grain market again. This time, the numbers are bigger, the stakes are higher, and the question hanging over the whole plan is one Kenyans have asked before: will bringing in more maize actually keep the price of unga in check, or are we just buying time?

The push is coming from the Cereal Millers Association, which wants government approval to import 3 million metric tonnes of white maize, duty-free, over nine months. Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe is weighing the request now.

Millers say they’re worried local supplies are tightening, and if nothing changes, flour prices could climb. To put that number in perspective: it dwarfs the 25 million bags (90kg each) the government said back in August it would help bring in to cover an expected shortfall.

Kenya eats through roughly 75 million bags of maize a year, and this season’s harvest isn’t going to come close.

Kagwe has pointed to poor and unpredictable rainfall in the country’s main growing counties as the reason behind an expected deficit of around 25 million bags. It’s also a reminder of something Kenya keeps relearning the hard way: how exposed the country is when farming depends so heavily on rain.

Kagwe flagged in early September that this season’s output could drop significantly because of the weather hitting key producing regions. Imports, in that context, become less of a choice and more of a necessity, a way to keep millers supplied so flour production doesn’t stall.

The millers pushing for the 3-million-tonne window say they need the runway, time to source maize, arrange financing, and get it transported before local stocks run dangerously low. They’re also asking for room to bring in non-GMO white maize from wherever it’s available, regionally or further afield.

More maize in the country should, in theory, ease the pressure; millers won’t be scrambling and bidding each other up for scarce grain. But theory and the checkout counter are two different things.

What actually determines the price of a packet of unga is the landed cost of that imported maize after transport, insurance, financing, border fees, storage, testing, milling, packaging, energy, and distribution all take their cut.

This gets trickier if a meaningful chunk of the maize comes from landlocked countries. Zambia is on the table as a source, but moving grain from Zambia into Kenya isn’t cheap or fast, and those costs stack up before the maize ever reaches a mill. Cheap grain at the farm gate in Zambia doesn’t mean cheap flour on a Nairobi shelf.

Kagwe himself has acknowledged part of the problem: maize can sit at the border for three to five days, and every extra day adds cost, costs that, eventually, land back on the consumer. He’s been pushing for fixes to border and logistics bottlenecks alongside the import approval itself.

Getting enough maize into the country is only half the job. Making sure it’s safe is the other half, and Kagwe hasn’t been subtle about it. His message to would-be importers has been blunt: don’t bother bringing maize that won’t pass inspection.

That means compliance with Kenya’s sanitary and phytosanitary rules, especially around moisture content and aflatoxin levels, which are non-negotiable in food safety terms.

The tension here is real: moving faster to bring maize in quickly puts pressure on the very testing systems meant to keep bad grain out. Kagwe wants lab testing sped up dramatically from hours or days down to about 10 minutes, plus streamlined, one-stop border processing.

It’s a balancing act. Kenya needs the maize urgently. It just can’t afford to cut corners getting it in.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the country imported 468,109 tonnes of unmilled maize in 2025, a 51.4% jump from 309,274 tonnes the year before. That increase happened even as local production had actually improved.

Zoom out further, and the pattern gets clearer. Government figures from the 2026/27 budget process show maize production climbing from 34 million bags in 2022 to 67 million bags in 2025, while imports over that same stretch fell from 9.9 million bags down to 3.3 million.

In other words: when local harvests are strong, Kenya buys less from abroad. When the weather turns, it runs straight back to the import market.

3 million tonnes of imported maize might ease the immediate squeeze, but it doesn’t fix anything underneath it.

It doesn’t grow Kenya’s own production capacity. It doesn’t expand irrigation. It doesn’t improve the seeds farmers plant. It doesn’t cut post-harvest losses. And it certainly doesn’t protect farmers from whatever the next drought brings.

That’s why this is increasingly being framed not as a one-off shortage, but as a structural food security issue. Even Kagwe has acknowledged as much, calling for a shift toward irrigation-based farming so the next dry spell doesn’t hit production quite so hard.

History backs up the concern. KNBS data shows maize output actually fell, from 47.6 million bags