Food crisis looms in the region in spite of current season of bumper harvest

Food insecurity in Kenya has been the force behind the flourishing cross border trade in agricultural produce in East Africa.

Faced with unfavourable weather, ineffective agricultural policies, poor organisation of small-scale farmers and largely unresponsive research, the country has been unable to produce enough food for its people and has had to turn to its neighbours.

Last year, the country produced a total of 2.1 million metric tonnes of maize, the staple crop.

This was against an estimated consumption of 3.2 million tonnes, according to figures from the East African Grain Council.

Kenya has the largest deficit, according to statistics on the food situation, which project that as at June this year, Uganda and Rwanda will have a maize surplus of 409,000 tonnes and 206,500 tonnes, respectively.

Kenya, on the other hand, is set to have a shortfall of 714,000 tonnes, whereas the deficit in Tanzania is estimated at 447, 514 tonnes.

Ratemo Michieka of the University of Nairobi’s Faculty of Agriculture says Kenya is the second highest importer of food in sub-Saharan Africa, after Ethiopia.

Now, calls are being made for decisive action to turn around agricultural production and reduce poverty.

The country representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Castro Camarada, told a conference in Nairobi last week that over the past three years, there has been an unprecedented series of crises that have worsened the food situation.

Also, prolonged drought and governance issues have greatly affected the food situation, not only in Kenya but also regionally and globally.

A senior policy analyst at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis, John Omiti, said the situation was described as “alarming” in the 2009 Global Hunger Index.

This is due to a high population growth rate that is not in harmony with the rate of food production.

Among the factors that this has been attributed to are dependence on rain-fed agriculture and reluctance to apply new technologies to balance food supply with demand.

Only last year did the Kenyan government embark on promoting irrigation schemes that led to revival of the Bura and Hola schemes, besides injecting funds into irrigation schemes in Western Kenya.

The genesis of food deficits in Kenya is traced to the 1990s and has grown gradually over the years.

The situation was worsened by the 2007/ 2008 post election violence and droughts.

Attempts to address this have been unsuccessful due to poor implementation of the formulated policies.

“There is total disregard of empirical information on climate change, droughts and other forecasts.

“No one is listening to researchers. Decisions are based on whether they make political sense,” said James Nyoro, the managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation in the African region.

Dr Nyoro said that while researchers have raised alarm over the regular cycles of weather patterns, resulting in prolonged droughts, four-year action is not taken to prepare for these.

However, the chief executive officer of the Kenya National Federation of Agricultural Producers, John Mutunga, said the problem is bigger than just listening to researchers.

He said researchers do not listen to farmers, for whose benefit they conduct studies.

In addition, research is not linked to dissemination of the new technologies that are developed.

As a result, small-scale farmers are stuck with traditional farming methods.

It is such neglect of smallholder farmers, who are said to grow the bulk of locally produced food in Kenya, that has been cited for stifling food production.

Dr Mutunga said the power of small-scale farmers could be harnessed through setting up strong co-operatives.

Left to operate individually, the farmers have become easy prey to exploitative schemes of middlemen and can neither benefit from economies of scale in production and procurement, nor fetch better prices for their produce.

Dr Mutunga said such approaches of agricultural development have been applied successfully in other countries to boost agricultural production and reduce poverty.

“Research has shown that for every one per cent growth in agricultural production, poverty reduces by 0.6 per cent,” he said.

High poverty rates have seen increasing numbers of Kenyans relying on aid.

Ibrahim Maalim, an official of the Ministry of Special Programmes, said for food security to be achieved, food has to be available and affordable.

The worst affected have been residents of arid and semi-arid areas, as well as the poor living in rural and urban areas.

Ruth Oniang’o, a professor of Food Science and Nutrition at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, said this has led to a drastic rise in cases of hunger and malnutrition.

She said that about a decade ago, the rate of malnutrition amongst children under five years stood at 18 per cent but has since risen to the current 35 per cent. Adults are also affected.

The private sector has not been spared the spillover effects of food insecurity in Kenya.

In an effort to cushion poor farmers through supply of cheap inputs, the government took upon itself the role of importing farm inputs for farmers under the stimulus programme.

This strategy has been criticised, not only because it is not sustainable, but because it has affected private enterprises engaged in sale of farm inputs. 

However, a director in the Ministry of Agriculture, Johnson Irungu, defended bulk purchasing of inputs by the government, saying it had lowered prices by breaking cartels of middlemen.