Farmers lose out in regional trade bloc

Three-day-old broilers at Nyamvula Lenga’s poultry room. [Photo: File, Standard]

Stakeholders in the dairy, poultry, and feed manufacturing industries have raised concerns over trade practices they say are driving them out of business. Under the auspices of Poultry Breeders Association of Kenya (PBAK), Association of Kenya Feed Manufacturers (AKEFEMA) and Dairy Co-operatives, they say though they welcome competition it should not be to an extent where it is hurting farmers.

Robert Muchugia, the Chairman of Poultry Breeders Association of Kenya says they are su­ffering huge losses due to the influx of day-old chicks from our the neighbouring countries.

“Poultry breeders have invested a lot in the business and put in a lot of planning to ensure the availability of day-old chicks in the country. We import the parent stock, which takes almost six months before they start laying eggs. These are the ones, which are used to hatch the commercial chicks we sell. We are finding ourselves in a hard situation because in between the six months, the market is filled with chicks from our neighbouring countries, which are selling at a lower price than our own,” says Muchugia.

The local market is also not doing well as many poultry farmers faced with high production costs have abandoned commercial poultry farming opting to keep small numbers for their home supplies. He says the breeders are forced to practice “mercy killing” of the chicks as they have to make way for new chicks as they have nowhere to sell them.

Up to 60,000 chicks in a week are being put under this process. They are also forced to sell the parent stock pre-maturely.

“The trading ground in this region is not level. The excess chicks we produce cannot be exported to Uganda or Tanzania because the borders are closed. On the contrary, our borders are open and we are receiving those chicks duty-free from our neighbours and the permits are being issued with a lot of ease.

“You remember a few months ago some chicks were destroyed in Namanga as they were being taken to Tanzania. We are talking of a trade block in East Africa but it is not two ways. Everything is being dumped in Kenya and we can’t offload to our neighbours,” says Muchugia.

Joseph Karuri the Chairman of AKEFEMA says that their feed sales have gone down as poultry and livestock farmers are affected by-products from Uganda and Tanzania.

“The East Africa Community protocol on the free movement of goods and services is very good on paper but in practice, it is not there. Our breeders tried selling chicks to Tanzania and the police there dug a deep pit and buried the chicks and told them to go back to their country. I am asking our government to come up with non-tariff barriers to stop the flooding of eggs and milk from Uganda at a cheap price. This is possible because that is what our neighbours are doing,” says Karuri.

Martin Kinoti who is the Secretary-General of AKEFEMA says as a dairy farmer, his cost of production has risen but the market has shrunk.

“I am using Kshs23 to produce a litre of milk before I put in labour and other costs. When I factor these, the cost rises to more than Kshs30 to produce a litre of milk and we are being offered Kshs20 to 21 on average across the country,” says Kinoti. He specifically blames milk from Uganda for the low prices.

“The milk from Uganda has affected our market and specifically two brands. These two appear untouchable and we have data and custom entries showing that that milk is coming to Kenya duty-free. If you try sending milk to Uganda today, we have data showing that you are expected to pay 30 percent import duty. We are wondering who is behind these two brands as they are killing the dairy farmer,” says Kinoti.

The stakeholders also claim that they have learned that poultry products from the USA and/or Brazil have been imported to Kenya, through Zanzibar and are being sold in selected outlets in Nairobi.

They have reached out to the Principal Secretary in the department of Livestock seeking his intervention after learning there is a team that has been dispatched to the US to conduct a risk analysis of their poultry industry, a move they say that is likely to open floodgates of imports.


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