Kenya is staring at a deepening food crisis as drought conditions tighten their grip on key food-producing regions, domestic rice production falters, and a legal battle threatens to block emergency imports that the Government says are essential to stabilising prices and safeguarding the constitutional right to food.
At the centre of the unfolding crisis is rice, a staple whose importance has steadily grown in Kenyan households, particularly in urban areas and Arid and Semi-Arid Land (ASAL) counties where climate stress has narrowed food choices. With erratic rainfall disrupting planting cycles and reducing yields, rice prices are already showing signs of volatility, raising fears of a wider food inflation spiral that could spill over into maize and other staples.
According to official data presented before the High Court, Kenya’s rice deficit is structural, persistent and worsening. National demand stands at between 1.3 and 1.5 million metric tonnes annually, yet domestic production supplies less than 20 per cent of that requirement.
The pressure is expected to intensify in the first half of 2026. From January to June 2026, Kenya will require about 750,000 metric tonnes of rice, but domestic production for the same period is projected at just 110,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice, a shortfall that cannot be bridged through local stocks alone.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development’s Contingency Emergency Response Action Plan 2025 paints an even starker picture, projecting a rice deficit of 381,225 metric tonnes by the end of January 2026.
These supply gaps are unfolding against a backdrop of worsening food insecurity. By November 2025, an estimated 1.8 million people in ASAL counties were already experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity. Without timely intervention, that number is projected to rise sharply to 3.5 million people, underscoring the human cost of delayed policy action.
Climate forecasts presented to the Court show erratic and below-average rainfall across key food-producing regions, disrupting planting calendars and sharply reducing yields. For irrigated rice schemes such as Mwea, Ahero and Bunyala, reduced water availability has increased production costs and constrained output. In rain-fed areas, failed or delayed rains have wiped out entire planting seasons.
The Government warned that these climate shocks are not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of climate variability that continues to undermine food production and price stability.
It is against this backdrop that the Government has come under legal challenge over its decision to allow controlled, time-bound importation of duty-free rice as a food security intervention.
During detailed submissions before the High Court sitting in Kerugoya, State Counsel Samuel Kaumba, Erick Theuri and other government lawyers warned that rice prices could rise sharply if the Court blocks imports needed to plug the widening national deficit.
The case, HCCHRPET/E009/2025, pits the Government against substituted petitioners Hon. James Kamau Murango and Hon. David Munyi Mathenge, who are challenging Gazette Notice No. 10353 of July 28, 2025, which authorised the importation of rice on a duty-free basis.
The State told the Court that the lapse of the Gazette Notice had already triggered price volatility in non-basmati long-grain rice, with retail prices fluctuating sharply in the second half of 2025, a warning sign of what could follow if imports are blocked entirely.
Government lawyers argued that rising rice prices disproportionately affect low-income households, particularly in informal settlements and drought-affected counties, where food consumes the largest share of household income.
“If rice becomes unaffordable, households shift to maize, pushing up maize prices as well,” the State submitted, warning of a cascading food inflation effect across the entire food system. Such knock-on effects, officials argued, could undermine national efforts to stabilise food prices and protect vulnerable populations.
The Ministry firmly rejected claims that duty-free imports were designed to benefit a few individuals, maintaining that the policy was anchored in the Constitution’s obligations under Articles 21 and 43, which guarantee the right to food.
Blocking imports, the Government warned, would expose millions of Kenyans to higher food prices, reduced access to staple foods, and heightened hunger, particularly in ASAL counties already grappling with drought.
Addressing claims that locally produced rice remains unsold, the Ministry explained that the mop-up of local rice has been ongoing, lawful and conducted in good faith through the Kenya National Trading Corporation (KNTC).
Since 2020, KNTC has purchased rice from cooperatives in Mwea, Ahero, Bunyala, Kuja, Kano and Bura, among other schemes, for redistribution to public institutions such as schools, hospitals and prisons.
However, the Government was emphatic that even full absorption of available local stocks cannot bridge the national deficit nor stabilise prices countrywide.
“Localized surplus cannot be mistaken for national food security,” the State submitted, stressing that food security must be assessed at a national scale, not based on conditions in a single production zone.
In a pointed argument, the Government cautioned the Court against overstepping into executive policy space, noting that food security decisions involve complex climatic, economic and logistical considerations best handled by the Executive.
Citing Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions — including Mitu-Bell Welfare Society v Kenya Airports Authority and British American Tobacco Kenya PLC v Cabinet Secretary for Health — the State argued that courts should exercise restraint where Government action is evidence-based, lawful and taken in good faith.
The Government further submitted that gazette notices granting tax exemptions are executive actions, not legislative instruments requiring public participation, as affirmed by the Court of Appeal.
While acknowledging the concerns raised by the petitioners, the State argued that the interests being advanced were narrow and private when weighed against the broader public interest of ensuring affordable food for millions of Kenyans.
“The Court is being asked to weigh competing interests,” the Government submitted. “On one side are commercial concerns; on the other are the livelihoods, dignity and survival of millions of Kenyans.”
Government lawyers warned that denying leave to import rice could endanger livelihoods, fuel social instability and deepen the food crisis outcomes that would contradict constitutional guarantees and undermine national stability.
The High Court is expected to deliver its ruling on 29th January 2026 at 2.30pm, a decision that could have far-reaching implications for food prices, household welfare and Kenya’s food security trajectory.
As drought tightens its grip, production deficits widen and food insecurity indicators worsen, the case has become a defining test of how Kenya balances judicial oversight, executive policy-making and the constitutional right to food, at a moment when the cost of delay could be counted not just in shillings, but in hunger.
