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Kenya's main sources of maize imports are tightening their grips on the sale of agricultural commodities to secure own needs, an indication that the looming food shortage in the new year could be worse than earlier thought.

Global commodity market monitoring reports indicate that Zambia and South Africa, which sold to Kenya much of the maize it imported this year, plan to limit export of agricultural produce next year leaving, Kenya with the option of buying from global markets where prices are on a steady rise.

Kenya is expected to produce only 60 per cent of its annual maize consumption needs from this year's crop and will have to top it up with 16 million bags of imports to secure its population from a supply shortage that could begin in April.

Buying such a large consignment of maize from the highly-priced global markets poses the danger of forcing the government to divert funds from other sectors to buy the food, denying the economy the momentum it needs to recover.

It also poses the danger of driving up maize prices on the domestic front and importing inflation that economists say is one of the challenges Kenya must deal with in the new year.

Zambian parliamentarians and consumer groups have in the past two months been piling pressure on their government to stop exports and use the bumper maize harvests in the Southern African nation to build up strategic reserves.

South Africa, where harvests are expected to be lower than last year's, has also indicated that it could make a similar move completing the series of blockades in the regional grains market.

Zambia and South Africa helped Kenya plug its maize deficit in the past two years that local production has been hit by post election turmoil and severe drought.

This year, Kenya was forced to rely mainly on Southern Africa imports after neighbouring Uganda and Tanzania stopped cross-border trade in cereals to build national stocks.

Severe drought in Uganda and parts of Tanzania is expected to leave Kenya without the informal cross-border grain markets that have helped it feed millions of its population cheaply without the involvement of the government.

"Kenya has been managing to feed her people, not because of producing enough but because of inflows from neighbouring countries through informal cross-border trades," argues Dr James Nyoro, a food security consultant.

A recent announcement by Zambia's Agriculture and Cooperatives minister Brian Chituwo that his government planned to sell part of its maize surplus to Kenya was met by stiff opposition from parliamentarians and consumer groups.

That means Kenya must start the search for alternative source markets early to avoid panic-buying and higher pricing that is expected in the global grains market beginning mid next year.

Kenya imported 100,000 tonnes of maize from Zambia in October to help stave off an acute shortage caused by post election turmoil that uprooted thousands of grain farmers from their farms in the country's bread basket of the North Rift.

Zambia, with an annual national maize consumption of 1.6 tonnes, harvested 1.9 tonnes in the 2008/9 season.

But an acute drought in large parts of the country this year has intensified calls for a build-up of strategic grain reserves and limitation of exports.

Kenya is expected to harvest 1.8 million tonnes (20 million) of maize this year, leaving an annual consumption shortfall of least 16 million bags, according to the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA).

USDA estimates that the country's maize output this year will be 0.3 million tonnes below last year's level and far below the five year average of 2.6 million tonnes (28 million bags), making imports critical to meeting the national consumption needs.

Next year's deficit--the largest in three decades-- follows a disappointing May to August harvests and a failed El Nino rains during the September to December short rains season.

Ministry of Agriculture records indicate that the two seasons contribute 85 per cent (28 million bags) and 15 per cent respectively of the national grains output.

The latest report of the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews Net) says that Kenya's granaries are fast running dry again with the available reserves only able to last until April next year.

Grain market watchers however warn that Kenya faces a tough assignment in sourcing grain next year should the southern African states choose to block exports.

Unlike Kenya which belongs to the East African Community (EAC), the three countries that sell maize to Kenya are members of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) that are likely to give preference to neighbouring in the event of a severe regional food crisis.

FAO's November food outlook report indicates that countries like Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Lesotho urgently require external help to feed their people, a revelation that implies trouble for Kenya which urgently requires imported maize to feed her people

Two weeks ago a crucial meeting by the EAC agriculture ministers held in Arusha agreed to set up a joint Early Famine Warning System to monitor food security in the region but failed to open cross border trade in grains to address the regional imbalances.

The FAO November Food Outlook report indicates that Kenya, Uganda and Burundi require external help to feed their citizens while Tanzania and Rwanda have sufficient grains to feed their people.

At the height of food price rallies and shortages experienced last year, Tanzania moved to ban grain exports by October of the same year, dampening hopes the Kenyan government of obtain any food from her southern neighbour.

The EAC's agriculture ministers only agreed to jointly press national governments to increase budgetary allocation to the sector toward the 10 per cent of the national GDP threshold of the Maputo declaration.

Food experts however point out that a joint early famine warning may not solve the region's food security challenges if not accompanied free movement of grain across the national borders

"An early warning system not only equips policy makers with information about food-type available at a particular location to facilitate transfer to deficit areas but also helps in planning for imports," says Dr John Omiti, head of productive sector division at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, a government policy think tank.

A regional grain market tracker - RATIN - observes in its latest report that the flow of maize into Kenya from both Uganda and Tanzania has dropped significantly in the past months.

"Maize trade in the region has for a while been dominated by flows from Uganda reaching a high of 129,860 tonnes since January while Tanzania has continued to be relied upon in the supply of rice into both Kenya and Uganda." observes RATIN.

The regional tracker's statistics also shows that large volumes of rice have been sourced from Zambia and Pakistan to DRC, Rwanda and Burundi.

The EAC common market protocol signed into treaty by the region's heads of state summit last month identifies food crops like sugar, maize, rice and wheat among the items that need protection from imports because they can be produced locally.

For instance, protocol imposes a common external tariff of 50 and 75 per cent on maize and rice respectively.