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    Maize short­age & new taxes pre­dicted to drive up feed cost

     chep animal feeds

    By George Munene

    Ac­cord­ing to an­imal feed re­tail­ers the price of feed is sched­uled for a price hike as maize prices -- the main com­pon­ent in most an­imal feeds -- have in­creased from Sh 2,800 for a 90kg bag two months ago to Sh 3,300.

    This rise has been driven by a short­age of maize in the coun­try and a re­cently in­tro­duced cess on grains de­livered to Nairobi, where most millers are headquartered, by the Kenya Rev­enue Au­thor­ity (KRA) that took ef­fect on 1st March.

    Fur­ther, the gov­ern­ment has im­posed a 15% tax on rice bran; an­other key com­pon­ent in an­imal feeds; im­por­ted into the coun­try from neigh­bor­ing Uganda and Tan­zania.

    Re­lated News: Kenyan traders now opt for UG/TZ cheaper, avail­able an­imal feeds

    Wel­ling­ton Serem, an an­imal feed re­tailer in El­doret, il­lu­min­ated that the 17% in­crease in the price of maize for major millers, from whom they source maize meal (chenga chenga) and maize bran, and a new tax on im­por­ted rice bran will in short order be con­veyed to the farm­ers.

    “Maize con­sti­tutes up to 30 per cent of dairy meal, 70 per cent in poultry ra­tion, and close to 50 per cent of pig feed. This makes it the most im­port­ant com­pon­ent of any an­imal feed ra­tion,” he ex­plained.

    Re­lated News: Meru dairy farmer banks on ge­net­ics to turn profit as feed costs rise

    Re­lated News: New feed­ing tech­no­logy helps farm­ers add 2.3L milk daily

    This will be un­wel­come news for small­holder live­stock keep­ers who are already pay­ing ex­or­bit­ant prices for feeds. A 70-kilo­gram bag of pig mash now re­tails for Sh 2,400 com­pared to last year while a kilo­gram of chicken feed will set you back Sh 5-15 more from this time last year.

    Serem poin­ted out that this can be at­trib­uted to a dra­matic rise in the price of key com­pon­ents that make up an­imal feeds over that time period: Cot­ton­seed cake is up 70 per cent to Sh 60 a kilo­gram, Soya now sells for Sh 120 com­pared to Sh 70 in March last year. Sun­flower cake has also had a double-di­git price hike to Sh 35 com­pared to Sh 25. A 40-kilo­gram bag of wheat bran will now set you back Sh 1,000 -- a Sh 200 price rise from last year.

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