Kenya imported wheat worth Ksh 30.6 billion in the twelve months to March 2026, according to data from the Kenya Revenue Authority, as domestic production struggled to reach 400,000 metric tonnes against a national consumption requirement estimated at 1.6 million tonnes. The 1.2-million-tonne shortfall — the largest in five years — has kept flour prices elevated across the country, with a 2-kilogramme packet of wheat flour retailing at between Ksh 190 and Ksh 220 in Nairobi supermarkets, roughly double the price of five years ago.
A Perfect Storm for Producers
Kenya’s wheat belt, concentrated in the high-altitude areas of Nakuru, Uasin Gishu, Trans Nzoia, and Nyandarua counties, suffered a second consecutive difficult season in 2025/26. Irregular distribution of the long rains, a residual effect of the El Nino disruption that scrambled seasonal calendars across the East Africa region, led to patchy germination and increased incidence of wheat rust disease. KALRO estimates that rust-related yield losses alone accounted for approximately 60,000 metric tonnes of the production shortfall.
Input costs remain a compounding problem. The cost of diammonium phosphate fertiliser remains 65 per cent above 2020 prices in real terms, with a 50-kilogramme bag retailing at Ksh 5,600 in Trans Nzoia in May 2026. The government’s subsidised fertiliser programme prioritised maize-producing smallholders, leaving large-scale wheat farmers largely without relief. “We were told to apply for the subsidy but the wheat allocation ran out in February before most of us had even been registered,” said Julius Rono, who farms 80 hectares in Eldoret North. The IMF-mandated removal of import duty waivers on wheat in the 2025/26 Budget — a revenue-raising measure under Kenya’s fiscal consolidation programme — also briefly pushed landed costs upward before global prices softened.
The Import Dependency Treadmill
Kenya sources wheat primarily from Russia, Ukraine, and Australia. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, now in its fifth year, continues to create periodic uncertainty in global wheat markets, and Kenya’s foreign exchange reserves — at 3.8 months of import cover as of May 2026, below the EAC recommended minimum — leave limited buffer against sudden price shocks. “We are in a structural trap,” said Dr Njoki Waweru, a food systems economist at the University of Nairobi. “We do not have enough arable land at the right altitude to ever fully replace wheat imports. But we are also not investing enough in the wheat we can grow domestically.” She argues that Kenya should accelerate the adoption of lower-altitude, heat-tolerant wheat varieties being developed at KALRO’s Njoro Research Centre, which could open an additional 200,000 hectares to wheat production over the next decade.
Political and Consumer Pressure
The National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) has maintained strategic grain reserves at 90-day cover, a level officials describe as adequate but not comfortable. The milling industry, dominated by Bidco, Unga Group, and Devki, has called for a consistent and predictable import duty regime rather than year-to-year waivers, arguing that uncertainty makes long-term procurement planning impossible. For urban consumers already squeezed by higher energy costs, transport levies, and SHA health contributions introduced to replace the defunct NHIF, the high price of unga wa ngano remains one of the most politically sensitive economic indicators heading towards the 2027 elections. Bread, chapati, and mandazi are staples in virtually every Kenyan household, and no administration has found a painless way to manage their price.
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