KENYA MAIZE BAN, UGANDA SHOOTING ITSELF IN THE FOOT YET AGAIN

Early this week we awoke to the news that Kenya had slapped an immediate ban on maize imports from Uganda.

Industry sources say that

total exports of maize to Kenya come in at around a million to two million tons annually. At about $250 a ton that can be up to $500m (about two trillion shillings) a year....

Kenya said our maize has unhealthy levels of cancer causing aflatoxins and unfit for human consumption.

We have been here before.

Between 1997 -2000 the European Union banned our fish exports sighting unhealthy levels of metal in them. As a result the fish processing industry had to retool their plants and improve their output. The issue of health and safety when it comes to food exports is hard to compromise on. Barley two years ago government placed restriction on chili exporters for fear of an imminent ban of our exports to the EU, of which some had been found infested with pests.

Who can blame any country from banning our produce if they fear or have proof we are not maintaining healthy standards along our value chain?

The ban is complicated by suspicions of big Kenyan concerns supposedly interested in frustrating our growing maize exports to our eastern neighbor. We are generating a significant surplus – we produce all we consume and then more, and at a considerably lower cost of production than the Kenyan farmer. There have been complaints that our maize is squeezing their maize out of the market.

Maize is the staple food of Kenya and as such, as an industry, has a strong political lobby, it would not be farfetched to suspect that some shenanigans were afoot.

An even more fantastic were rumours that the ban was specifically targeted at a major politician there, who was importing massive amounts of grain for campaign purposes.

Those may be as they were but it does not take away from the fact that our phytosanitary standards, which relate to the health of plants, especially surrounding international trade, leave a lot to be desired.

People in the grain export industry saw this coming years ago.

Maize exports to Kenya have been rising by leaps and bounds. Official statistic show that maize exports to our eastern neighbor have tripled to $176 in 2018 from $62m in 2008. But as stated above industry players think the unofficial trade – a euphemism for smuggling, swells this number to nearly half a billion dollars, when we enjoy a bumper harvest.

Given its growing prominence in our exports, one would expect that our government would pay particular attention to it.

Since the last decade organized exporters recognizing this and foreseeing just such a situation as our maize exports are suffering now appealed to government to tighten regulation around the grain. The regulations they sought were just as the restrictions Kenya has now imposed on our maize exports, that there be certification of quality and safety of every export and proof of origin. What we have dragged our feet to implement, the market has done for us. Never the ideal situation...

Part of creating market access for our goods abroad is enacting laws and regulations that ensure that our exports stand up to foreign scrutiny. When the government, pandering to parochial interests ignores this, it makes a mockery of us trying to drive exports.

The East African Community(EAC) has really helped us drive exports, but it was foolhardy of us to believe that our laxity, even negligence, would be tolerated indefinitely by our neighbours.

Export markets are critical to the transformation of the economy and especially the creation of jobs for the army of jobless youth. We should give this endeavor the importance it deserves.

Thankfully the Kenyans have lifted the blanket ban. It is probably our last warning. We are not indispensable to them, they can import their maize from southern Africa.

And contrary to populist opinion, the formalization of the sector will do good for the small farmer. As it is now there is little price distinction between poor and high quality maize, because millers have been getting away with murder accepting wet and poor quality maize...

By insisting on quality standards millers will be forced to invest more – like the fish processing plants did two decades ago, and farmers will have an incentive to invest in better post-harvest handling as a result.

This is not only for the export market. By regularizing the industry we can be healthier. By some accounts Uganda has the highest per capita cases of liver cancer in the world and some suspect its from all the aflatoxins we ingest.

Put our hands up if all your boarding school life was sustained on posho and beans.