{{The Kenyan government has procured 200,000 metric tonnes of maize from Tanzania in bid to lower the maize prices that have been going up in the recent months.}}<\/p>\n
Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei says the government of Tanzania has agreed to sell to Kenya a first batch 50,000 metric tonnes from her National Food Reserve Agency at a cost of Sh2,650 per 90 kilogram bag and delivered at a cost of Sh300 per bag.<\/p>\n
Koskei says the maize will be delivered in mid August with the remaining amount negotiated over time depending on the availability of maize in Tanzania.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main objective of this initiative is to enhance supplies of maize in the Kenyan market with the sole purpose of moderating the prices of maize flour which is a key for staple food for many Kenyans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The procurement will be through the private sector in Kenya while transport will be by Tanzania\u2019s private sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) will offer storage facilities to the traders who may not have adequate storage facilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The national maize stocks as at May 21, 2014 stood at 8.8 million bags with farmers holding about 4 million bags; traders 1.1 million bags, millers 325,000 bags and NCPB having 3.03 million bags.<\/p>\n
He refuted of any shortage of food in the country pointing out that that the national food security situation in Kenya in the month of May was normal.<\/p>\n
This comes as Kenya\u2019s economy suffers constrained growth owing to erratic weather patterns that resulted in depressed agricultural output in the first quarter of 2014.<\/p>\n
Agriculture and forestry grew by 2.7% in the first quarter of 2014 compared to a growth of 6.8% over a similar period in 2013.<\/p>\n
According to latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) a kilogram of green maize went up by 5.2% to Sh48. 97 from Sh46.54 in May while a 2kg packet of maize flour 1.8% to Sh121.98 from Sh119.83 in May.<\/p>\n
A 2kg packet of wheat flour went up by 2% to Sh144.06 from Sh119.83 in May while a kilo of tomatoes went down by 8.9% to Sh93.80 from Sh103 in the month of May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The Kenyan government has procured 200,000 metric tonnes of maize from Tanzania in bid to lower the maize prices that have been going up in the recent months.}} Agriculture, Fisheries and Livestock Cabinet Secretary Felix Koskei says the government of Tanzania has agreed to sell to Kenya a first batch 50,000 metric tonnes from her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000052987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[99],"byline":[334],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe-reporter"],"bylines":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":334,"name":"IGIHE Reporter","slug":"igihe-reporter","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":{"id":2000052987,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15288.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000052987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15288"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15288"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}