Tanzania to Sell 1 Million Tons of Corn to Drought-Hit Kenya

(Bloomberg) -- Tanzania is set to sell 1 million tons of corn to neighboring Kenya where a drought curbed production and caused prices of the grain to soar.

A formal request for the sale from Kenya has been received, Tanzania’s state minister for agriculture, Omary Mgumba, said Friday in an emailed statement without giving details of the transaction. The East African nation is also in the process of selling 700,000 tons of corn to Zimbabwe, Mgumba said.

Exports of that volume would represent a huge increase for Tanzania. The country’s prior record for corn exports was 500,000 tons in the 2013-14 season, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Read more about Kenya’s corn imports

Kenya may import 1.3 million tons in the 12 months that start July, more than double the previous year’s purchases, according to USDA. Prices of corn, which is used to make a staple food, increased as much as 70% in April from a month earlier as output dropped, the National Drought Management Authority said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ken Karuri in Dar es Salaam at kkaruri@bloomberg.net;Megan Durisin in London at mdurisin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Malingha at dmalingha@bloomberg.net, Lynn Thomasson

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