New maize board to license millers, control sector under proposed law

By  Samwel Owino

Reporter

Nation Media Group

Millers are set to have an independent, standalone maize board that will be tasked with registering millers, issuing and charging licence fees to operate a maize mill if the draft Maize Bill, 2026 is enacted.

The draft legislative proposal by Moiben MP Phylis Bartoo seeks to create an independent maize board that will help the government in the development and promotion of the maize sector.

The board, according to the proposal, shall also be mandated to license exporters and importers of maize or maize by-products.

“The board will be tasked with regulating and developing the maize sector, serving as an intermediary between stakeholders and the government while monitoring market trends,” reads the draft Bill.

The draft Bill, which is currently under scrutiny by the committee on agriculture, states that the board will also be responsible for managing data, facilitating imports, exports, enforcing standards through licensing, and promoting value addition.

Currently, the maize sector is governed by the Crops Act, 2013, Agriculture Food Authority (AFA) Act, 2013, Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Act, 2013 and the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) Act, 1985.

The draft Bill therefore seeks to amend the Crops Act, 2013 by deleting maize from the list of scheduled crops and the NCPB Act, 1985 by deleting the word maize in all its clauses.

The draft Bill also provides that all the property that was vested for the use of maize by NCPB shall become the property of the Maize Board of Kenya upon commencement of this Act.

The functions to be undertaken by the Maize Board of Kenya are currently being undertaken by the AFA, and the functions to be undertaken by the Maize Research Institute of Kenya are currently being undertaken by KALRO.

The draft Bill seeks the establishment of a Maize Research Institute of Kenya whose main function will be to formulate policies and make policy recommendations on maize research to the Cabinet Secretary, and promote, coordinate and regulate research in maize and maize diseases.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), maize production is crucial for the country’s economy since it generates income for approximately 3.5 million farmers and accounts for about 56 per cent of cultivated land in Kenya.

The data shows that about 70 per cent of the maize produced in the country comes from small-scale farmers who have less than five acres, while the rest is produced by medium-scale farmers (between 5 – 20 acres) and large-scale farmers (over 20 acres).

Kenya imported 468,109.3 metric tonnes of maize valued at Sh13.17 billion and exported 5,319.5 metric tonnes of maize valued at Sh862.4 million.

Currently, the government does not directly control the prices of maize in the country. However, the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) is mandated to procure and sell maize at administratively determined prices and keep strategic grain reserves with a view of stabilising maize market prices.

An analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) indicates that it will cost taxpayers Sh554 million in the three years of the full implementation of the Bill.

The budget office indicates that in the first year of the implementation of the bill, it will cost taxpayers approximately Sh176 million to fully implement some of the proposals, Sh184.8 million in the second year, and Sh194 million in the third year.

The board will, however, collect Sh5.96 million in the first year of implementation from registration and issuing of licences to millers, based on current collections from the Agriculture Food Authority (AFA)

The Parliamentary Budget Office has now given the agriculture committee three options as it prepares its report to the House.

In its first option, the budget office has advised the committee to adopt the proposal in its current form, a move that would mean the maize sector will be governed by a stand-alone board responsible for the regulation, development, and promotion of maize.

In its second option, the budget office has advised the committee to consider amending the bill to reduce implementation costs by including a provision that the staff and resources of the respective maize departments in AFA and KALRO be transferred to the Maize Board of Kenya and the Maize Research Institute, respectively.

The last PBO option to the committee is to reject the draft Bill, a move which will mean that the maize sector will continue to be governed by the Crops Act, 2013, NCPB Act, 1985, AFA Act, 2013, and Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research Act, 2013

The committee will now consider all the options before submitting its report to the Speaker on whether the draft proposal should be published as a Bill and introduced to the House for first reading.

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