Kenya is set to receive maize at the Port of Mombasa from Odessa, Ukraine to cushion the high price of maize flour which retails at Kes200 per two-kilo packet.
The Stellar Lady ship from Odessa will dock on the Kenyan coast on March 13, 2023.
Maize flour prices have been rising amid a prolonged drought coupled with a depressed maize harvest across the country in the last year.
Low supply has pushed the demand for the product, with millers unable to source corn from within.
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Initially, a two-kilo packet was retailing for about Kes100, it now retails at Kes200, impacting millions of Kenyan households.
The government has resorted to the importation of maize to fill the gap to stabilise the high prices.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi early this year assured Kenyans that the cost of maize flour would come down in February.
“We are going to import maize and rice and we are not doing it because we want. The projections are so bad that if we don’t do it our people will die for lack of food. By the end of February the price of unga and rice will have come down,” he said.
Rising inflation is also expected to hurt more families at a time when commodity prices are already high.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), Kenya’s cost of living increased slightly in February to 9.2 per cent from 9 per cent in January.
