Imports craze: Kenya gave in 'too much' in Museveni, Uhuru deal

In a negotiation if you show the other party you really want something and you are desperate for it, they can take advantage of you. This is probably what happened in the recent talks between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Uganda's Yoweri Museveni.

From my perspective, President Kenyatta gave in too much to ensure his Ugandan counterpart committed to building the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) from Kampala to Malaba culminating in a bad week for Kenyan farmers.

Uganda is a landlocked country and relies heavily on Mombasa Port for her cargo needs. It has been proven that for SGR to be fully effective, it has to serve the region especially the land locked countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Uganda was developing cold feet over the deal and Tanzania has won over Rwanda which prefers the Tanzanian route. President Kenyatta had therefore to convince Museveni to commit to developing the Kampala –Malaba SGR and the Chinese were not ready to release the Sh380 billion to fund the Naivasha- Kisumu phase of the project without this assurance.

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At the end of the day, Kenyans and especially farmers lost too much in the deal. According to official social media posts by President Museveni; Ugandans will now increase their annual sugar exports to Kenya from 36,000 metric tonnes to 90,000.

As if cheap egg imports from Uganda are not enough to kill the poultry sector in Kenya, Ugandans will resume poultry exports to Kenya in a week. They will also have less paper work for their dairy products exports in return for lifting beef imports to Kenyans. Within the week, Kenyan farmers were shocked to learn of the proposed The Crops (Food Crops) regulations of 2018 that criminalises the use of raw manure in planting crops. The law also recommends a jail term of up to three years for anyone obstructing a crop inspector from accessing their farm.

As much as safety standards are important, farmers should be sensitised through forums and trainings by extension officers but not creating corruption conduits in the name of crop inspectors. A few days ago, the Kenya Dairy Board suspended proposed milk regulations that would have seen farmers fined up to Sh500,000 for selling milk to their neighbours. The regulations proposed farmers to pasteurise their milk or sell to someone with a cooling facility if they have no capacity. The regulations were suspended after an uproar by Kenyans on social media who read mischief in a sector controlled by Brookside Dairy which is associated with the Kenyatta family and has previously bought some of its competitors.

In conclusion, whereas I advocate for controlled free trade (positive protectionism) to protect key industries and jobs, President Museveni’s visit to Kenya and the trade deals signed by his counterpart culminates into a bad week for Kenyan farmers.

[The writer is passionate about agriculture and is a policy analyst]