Posted on September, 8, 2021 at 10:22 am
Manufacturers of animal feed want the government to allow importation of yellow maize and GMO soya beans to cushion farmers against high prices.
The Association of Kenya Animal Feeds Manufacturers (AKFEMA) said the price of a 70kg bag of dairy meal has gone up from Sh2,000 to Sh2,350 in two months.
The price of a bag of layers mash has increased from Sh3,000 to Sh3,400.
Sylvia Magotsi, a pig farmer from City Ranch Limited in Kiambu county, said farmers are struggling with the high cost of animal feed.
She said since 2015 she has been keeping at least 1,000 pigs. She used to supply 25 pigs a week to Farmer’s Choice, but since last year the number has reduced due to the high cost of feed.
“Since last year when the Covid-19 pandemic started, we have reduced the number of pigs and we are not even able to supply on a monthly basis. This is due to the feed prices,” Magotsi said.
“I now supply pigs twice a month. The number of pigs has dropped from 1,000 to 600.”
She said she was forced to cut the number of staff from 13 to six.
Zach Munyambu, a poultry farmer in Kiambu county, said the cost of a 70kg bag of layers in Kiambu has gone up from Sh2,600 to Sh3,400 and the venture is no longer sustainable.
He said many poultry farmers are closing down their businesses due to the high cost of feed.
Munyambu said 500 layer birds consume one 70kg bag a day. “The first 10 trays of eggs go towards buying feed, with a tray fetching Sh300,” he said.
Munyambu said 500 birds lay 14 trays of eggs, which sell for Sh3,000.
“This means the cost of one bag cannot be sustained by the first 10 trays. This is forcing many farmers to move out of poultry farming and those that are still in it are doing so to maintain their flock for fear of flooding the market and selling at throwaway prices,” he said.
Munyambu said an ex-layer bird in Kiambu county is selling between Sh300 and Sh350. The cost of raising one layer is between Sh600 and Sh700.
“With the cost of maintaining one bird being between Sh600 to Sh700 and a farmer selling it at Sh350, this means one will be making a loss of almost Sh350 per bird. This will affect many people in the value chain,” he said.
Munyambu said with affordable feed, farmers can fetch good money from poultry farming. He said 500 birds should fetch a farmer an average of between Sh40,000 and Sh45,000.
“Today, many farmers make only Sh10,000 from 500 birds and this is before you pay the labourer. The income that farmers are getting from poultry farming is not sustainable due to the high cost of feed,” he said.
David Muriuki, the general manager of Soy Afric Limited, which supplies soy cake to feed manufacturers, said the industry is in crisis. He urged the government to intervene before it collapses. He said the cost of feeds has been affected by a scarcity of raw materials such as soya seeds and cotton seed cakes.
Speaking on Thursday during an interview with the Star, Muriuki said in the last five years, there has been a worrying trend of increasing prices of soya beans and decreasing availability of the commodity. “Kenya imports soya beans from Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. In the 1990s, a kilo of soya beans cost between Sh20 and Sh30 per kilo. In the early 2000s, the price went up slightly to between Sh40 and Sh45 a kilo. But in the last two years, the price and the availability of the bean has spiked exponentially. Today, we are buying soya beans at Sh110 per kilo,” he said.
Muriuki said that during the Covid-19 period, markets such as China and India, had low or failed crop, and they started buying from Uganda, Malawi and Zambia markets, making the commodity scarce.
“We import non-GMO soya beans, but this has not always been the scenario. In the 1990s, we used to import GMO soya beans from countries like Argentina, Brazil and even the US. At the time, the country allowed GMO commodities, but this stopped when then Health CS Beth Mugo banned importation of GMO products into the country,” he explained.
Muriuki said there is a need for intervention to allow GMO soya beans into the country.
“We have tried to encourage our farmers to grow the produce, but this has not happened because the cost of the soya seed is very expensive and we don’t have seed varieties that are suitable for Kenyan soil,” he added.
Gerald Masila, the CEO East African Grain Council, said one of the most important ingredients for animal feed formulation is protein and soya bean is the best stable and good plant protein.
“Other alternatives are omena [which are scarce and gets contaminated during handling], sunflower cake, which is not available, and cotton seed cake. The cotton industry has not been faring well,” he said.
Masila said the animal industry relies on soya bean availability from Uganda, Tanzania and India.
Last month, India allowed the importation of 1.2 metric tonnes of GMO soya beans into the country to avert the crisis.
“This means if India has allowed GMO soya bean and Kenya imports almost 90 per cent of soya bean from there, they will process it there and it will find its way into the country in the form of finished products, despite the ban on GMO products in Kenya. The government needs to take action and address the crisis before it gets out of hand,” he said.
Masila said there is also a need to develop suitable seeds for different agro-ecological zones.
According to an assessment done by EAGC, Kenya has a great potential for producing soya beans and even exporting in the region.
He urged farmers in rice schemes such as Mwea, Ahero and Bura to practice crop rotation with soya crop, because it is a nitrogen fixer.
“When farmers harvest their rice crop, they can put soya bean and within 90-120 days, they have a crop to harvest. But to do this, we need to address the issue of seed availability,” Masila said.
Source: The Star