By Benadeta Mwaura - Reporter
Kenya, September 02, 2026 - Kenya is preparing to import up to 25 million 90-kilogramme bags of maize to bridge an anticipated production deficit, but for farmers whose livelihoods depend entirely on agriculture, the bigger question is what happens after the imported maize fills the immediate gap.
Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mutahi Kagwe announced on August 19 that the government had begun arrangements to facilitate the imports after drought and other climate-related challenges disrupted production in major maize-growing areas. Kenya consumes about 75 million bags of maize annually, with the projected shortfall estimated at nearly 25 million bags.
“We will import maize. We have already made arrangements for that. We will manage the country. The country is not going to go hungry,” Kagwe said.
The decision offers an immediate answer to a looming supply problem. But it also exposes a deeper weakness in Kenya's food system: the country needs farmers to keep producing food, yet farming remains one of the most difficult businesses to finance, insure and sustain.
For agripreneur Kevin Kamau, who runs Tukalime and farms at scale, food security cannot be reduced to whether food is available in shops.
“Food secure means that, if I could put it in layman's terms, it means that you are not going outside your borders to be able to feed your population,” Kamau said.
His concern goes beyond maize imports. It is about whether Kenyan farmers can remain economically viable long enough to keep feeding the country.
Kamau says agriculture is exposed to risks that make conventional financing difficult. Farmers have to contend with unpredictable rainfall, drought, pests, diseases and changing seasons, while financial institutions often view the sector as too risky.
“There’s a lack of understanding in that point of view,” he said, referring to the difficulty farmers face when seeking financing and insurance for agricultural ventures.
The problem becomes even more serious for smallholder farmers. A large commercial farmer may be able to lease land, move operations between regions and absorb some of the shocks associated with failed seasons. A household farmer who depends on a small piece of land for both income and food has far fewer options.
Kamau described what happens when farmers experience repeated failed seasons.
“So imagine for somebody like me yet the small holder farmer, if you've not planted for two seasons, what happens? You have mouths to feed,” he said.
That vulnerability is increasingly important as climate shocks disrupt Kenya's traditional agricultural calendar. Kamau recalled how farmers were caught off guard when rainfall patterns shifted, with the short rains failing and the long rains arriving at a different time than expected.
The result is a cycle that can quickly move from failed crops to lost income, loan pressure, reduced household food supplies and, eventually, greater dependence on imports.
The irony is that Kenya's farmers are being asked to solve a national problem while carrying much of the risk themselves.
Kamau argues that the country needs to change the way it thinks about agriculture. Farming, he says, cannot be treated simply as an activity that produces food for today's market. It must also be viewed as the foundation for industrialisation and employment.
“If you kill agriculture, because agriculture needs not to be looked at only as food, but also to drive industry,” he said.
He argues that Kenya cannot realistically build a strong industrial economy without first strengthening the agricultural economy that supplies its raw materials.
“There has to be an agrarian revolution to be able to feed the factories, to be able to push that agenda,” Kamau said.
This is where the current maize shortage becomes more than a debate about unga prices.
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The government says the imports are a short-term intervention while longer-term measures, including expanded irrigation, are pursued to reduce Kenya's vulnerability to drought and unreliable rainfall. Kagwe has also pointed to efforts to make agriculture more commercially viable and to address taxation and bureaucratic challenges affecting farmers and agribusinesses.
But the numbers raise uncomfortable questions.
According to reports, Kenya harvested about 71 million 90kg bags in the previous season, while the government had earlier cited a target of 70 million bags for the current season. Yet drought in major maize-producing regions has now pushed the country towards imports. The National Cereals and Produce Board is also reported to have received only 180,000 bags from farmers against a target of two million bags for the strategic food reserve.
That suggests Kenya's food-security challenge is not simply how much maize the country can produce in a good year. It is whether the agricultural system can consistently incentivise farmers to plant, invest, insure their crops, adopt irrigation and remain in farming when conditions turn against them.
Kamau points to another structural problem: Kenya's agricultural land has become increasingly fragmented, making mechanisation and productive farming more difficult in some regions. At the same time, commercial crops such as tea and coffee can appear more attractive to farmers because they offer a clearer financial incentive than growing staple food crops.
He gave the example of farmers choosing to abandon maize for coffee because the economics increasingly favour the cash crop.
“Why should I grow maize, supply government, get paid after a year? It doesn't make sense,” he said.
That calculation matters.
A farmer does not plant maize because the country needs maize. A farmer plants because the crop must make economic sense for the household. If production costs rise, weather becomes less predictable, markets become uncertain and payments take too long, farmers can rationally choose another crop, or leave farming altogether.
And that is where Kenya's food-security problem could become much bigger than the current 25-million-bag deficit.
Kagwe has said the government will use irrigation, technology and other interventions to strengthen local production. The ministry has also said agriculture should become a commercially viable engine of wealth creation and employment rather than a last resort.
But for that transformation to happen, the farmer has to be at the centre of the conversation.
Kenya can import maize to prevent a shortage this year. It can open commercial import channels and stabilise supplies. But imports cannot replace a functioning domestic agricultural economy.
The harder question is whether Kenya can build a food system in which a farmer can survive a bad season, finance the next crop, earn a sustainable income and still have enough food left for the household.
Because when farmers stop planting, the shortage does not begin at the supermarket.
It begins on the farm.
And by the time the country notices, importing 25 million bags may only be treating the symptom.