He cited the example of a hybrid sorghum variety developed by Egerton University and embraced by Kenya Breweries for its good malting qualities but whose rollout has been delayed by constraints in the seed system. The brewer alone, he said, currently needs between 40,000 and 50,000 tons of sorghum grain a year. Kenya produces between 250,000 tons and 300,000 tons of sorghum annually.

“In the region, we are also a paltry small producer of sorghum if we compare with Sudan which does six million hectares, Ethiopia has about two million hectares, Tanzania 750,000 hectares and these are large players where much of the sorghum is not for industry but for food,” he said Zubeir Ibrahim Mohamed from Sudan’s Nile Sun Company, which produces seeds for sorghum, said that although they grow a lot of sorghum in his country, he was looking for the high-yielding varieties developed in Kenya.

In Sudan, he said, sorghum is mainly used for feed and food and is also blended with wheat flour for bread making.

He noted that although they produce sorghum in over six million acres, the national average is low at about 0.2- 2.3 tonnes per acre. An improved breed they got them from Kenya last year is yielding 1.5 tonnes per acre.

“The hybrid has more potential but if we increase the area and improve varieties, this 0.2 ton can go up to 0.7 and it is a huge increase,” Ibrahim said According to the seed consortium members there is a lot of interest that has been shown in the past five years by the private sector not only in Kenya but across East and Southern Africa.