The rolling demonstrations were initially a response to the deeply unpopular Finance Bill 2024, which Ruto withdrew. But in his televised roundtable, Ruto said the consequences would be that Kenyan traders would “continue to import potatoes from Europe when we have potatoes in … Nyandarua”.
The Kenyan county is a leading producer of potatoes.
The finance bill sought to limit the excise tax levied on imported potatoes to only those coming from outside the regional trading bloc, the East African Community.
In early 2022, when multinational fast food chain KFC said it had run out of potato imports, there was an uproar about why it was importing the commodity when Kenya had plenty. At the time, one economist said that he was shocked Kenyans didn’t know the country imported potatoes.
According to the KNBS Economic Survey 2024, Kenya produced 2.3 million tonnes of potatoes and imported 2,000 tonnes in 2023.
The reputable Observatory of Economic Complexity platform, which tracks international trade data, shows that Kenya imported potatoes from the Netherlands, Tanzania, France, China, and the UK in 2022, the latest year for which data is available.
Furthermore, 2021 data from the World Integrated Trade Solution, the global trade database, also lists European countries (the Netherlands and the UK) as exporting potatoes to Kenya.
Dr Timothy Njagi, a researcher at the Tegemeo Institute, an agricultural policy think tank in Kenya, has written about potato imports. In a text, he told Africa Check that the two sources should settle the question of the origin of Kenya’s potato imports.
While the claim is correct, only a tiny proportion of the total potato consumption is imported – 2,000 tonnes or 0.001% of the 1.98 million tonnes consumed as “food, seed, or other uses”. –Alphonce Shiundu.
Credit: Source link