Kenya Turns To Zambia For 540,000 Tones Of Maize As Shortage Deepen

Kenya and Zambia inked an agreement Wednesday that will see Kenya import as much as 540,000 metric tonnes of maize, marking a significant expansion of grain trade between the two nations.

The deal was signed at the Cabinet Office in Lusaka by Zambia’s Food Reserve Agency and a Kenyan firm on September 9, 2026.

Per the terms, Zambia will supply Kenya with white, non-GMO, Grade A maize, with the full 540,000-tonne order broken into six separate shipments.

Siazongo Siakalenge, Zambia’s Deputy Secretary to Cabinet for Finance and Economic Development, explained that the first five deliveries will each total 100,000 tonnes and arrive at three-month intervals, followed by a smaller sixth batch of 40,000 tonnes to close out the order.

Siakalenge used the announcement to push Zambian traders and businesses to capitalize on the country’s grain surplus, urging them to hunt down new export markets and grow the footprint of Zambian-grown maize abroad.

The agreement lands at a time when Kenya is working on multiple fronts to lock down regional maize supplies. Nairobi has also been in talks to boost imports from Uganda, part of a broader push between the two countries to deepen agricultural ties under the African Continental Free Trade Area framework.

On that front, Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe noted that Uganda has the capacity to cover a meaningful share of Kenya’s maize needs, though he flagged persistent worries about aflatoxin contamination in grain crossing the border.

During a luncheon with members of Uganda’s Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture, Kagwe pressed for tighter drying protocols to be put in place before maize is shipped to Kenya, arguing this would need to be sorted out first.

He framed the issue as a potential win-win: get the quality controls right, and Ugandan farmers gain broader market access while Kenyan consumers get assurance that the food reaching them is safe.

On the Zambian side, the maize deal fits into a bigger production push. The government is chasing a target of 10 million metric tonnes of annual maize output under its Grow Zambia initiative, aiming to grow enough not just to feed the domestic market but to compete internationally too.

That ambition follows a record-breaking season in which the country brought in more than 5.1 million tonnes of maize, its biggest harvest to date, leaving officials scrambling to find buyers for the surplus.

For Zambia, the Kenya agreement opens up another substantial regional outlet for that surplus. For Kenya, it secures a steady pipeline of maize from one of the region’s biggest grain producers at a moment when the country is actively diversifying its import sources.

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