Paddy rice production in Kenya jumped 22% in 2023, says Ministry of Water and Irrigation
KENYA – Paddy rice production in Kenya grew by 22 percent to 234,000 metric tonnes last year, from 192,299 metric tonnes in 2022 according to the latest data from the Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation.
The Ministry data also shows that the area under irrigation grew by 7.2 percent from 664,000 acres to 711,933 in the review period.
High acreage is attributed to the development of new rice schemes and double cropping from the Mwea Irrigation Scheme.
The data also indicates that the volume of water harvested and stored for irrigation grew by 20 percent through the completion of the Thiba dam and community and household water pan projects.
The above was implemented under the National Expanded (NEIP) and Community-Based Irrigation Schemes (CBIS), among others.
Rice is the third most important cereal crop after maize and wheat. Due to the progressive change in the eating habits of Kenyans, particularly in more urban areas, the annual consumption of rice is increasing at a rate of over 12% in the country.
Currently, Kenya imports 80% of its rice from Asia and Tanzania to meet the demand for rice consumption which is estimated at 20.6 kilos per capita.
According to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, Kenya imported 630,910 tonnes of rice in 2022 valued at Ksh31.14 billion (US$252.9 million). Only 186,000 tonnes of rice paddy were produced locally in the review year.
To reduce the heavy financial import burden, the country has devised measures to boost local production to achieve rice self-sufficiency.
Through the National Rice Development Strategy, the government seeks to increase rice production from 128,000 tonnes to 846,000 tonnes, sevenfold by 2030.
The agriculture PS Paul Ronoh revealed this through a speech read by the ministry’s Director for Crop Resources Management Douglas Kangi during the Kenya National Rice Conference held last year on November 16 in Nairobi.
The ambitions follow the implementation of the second phase of the NRDS 2019-2030 which is ongoing and seeks to increase local rice production to a level where Kenya becomes self-sufficient.
To achieve this, the National Rice Development Strategy is focused on developing new rice varieties that require less water to grow and produce better yields.
The proposed new varieties are climate-smart and have already been launched in the Hola irrigation scheme by the Kenya Agricultural Livestock Research Organization (KALRO) in partnership with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
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