The global food outlook is grim. The US,
the world’s largest exporter of maize and wheat, is facing the most severe
drought in more half a century. And it could get worse. Severe weather has also
visited havoc in other major food exporting countries like Australia, Brazil,
Russia and India.
There are growing concerns that decline
in output in the world’s leading grain exporting countries could touch off a global
shortage of vital food commodities. A couple of week ago, the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that global food prices hade
jumped 6%, with price of maize going up 23%.
Thank goodness Kenya is not facing a
drought of the proportion currently ravagining the US. But even when no single
disaster befalls Kenya, our food economy remains fragile and vulnerable to the
vagaries of events in far off places. Thanks partly to globalization.
Early indications are that maize
harvest for 2012 could decline by 20-30%. Widespread crop failure is expected
in parts of Mwingi, Makueni, Kitui and Taita. The long-rains in these regions
were erratic; starting 2-4 weeks late and ending 3-4 weeks earlier than usual. The
outbreak of the highly contagious maize lethal necrosis disease in southern
Rift Valley affected nearly 15,000 hectares and could cause a 20% decline in
maize harvest.
In April this year it was reported that
the Kenya’s Strategic Grain Reserve was short of 540,000 tonnes of maize. It is
noteworthy that Kenyans consume 270,000 tonnes of maize per month. According to
the Global Information Early Warning System of FAO, the national maize deficit
or import requirements for 2012/13 is projected to be 1.15 million tonnes, up
by about 15% compared to 2011.
Maize prices in Kenya have generally
increased during the last 3-4 months by an average of 20-25% in main wholesale
markets. According to Oxfam International, poor
people in developing countries spend 50-80 of their income on food. A majority
of Kenyans find themselves sinking deeper and deeper into a food insecurity
induced poverty trap. A World Bank report published in 2011 estimates that the
global food price spikes in 2008 pushed 44 million people below the poverty
line, most of them in developing countries.
High food prices have led to
significant declines in daily nourishment levels, leading to a surge in
stunting, which now stands at about 35% among children under five years of age.
A report published by UNICEF in 2009 concluded that because of low caloric
intake poor nutrition, the next generation of Kenyans would be shorter, less
intelligent, less productive and hardly capable of sustaining the country’s
dream of a prosperous nation within the Vision 2030.
Why hunger and malnutrition persists on
a vast scale in Kenya and what can be done about it have proved to be two of
the most intractable questions in research, development policy.
The Green Revolution-style agriculture
is not new to Kenya. In the 1970s the Kenya government poured money into
fertilizer, seeds and farm mechanization as well as price support. These Green
Revolution-style interventions caused farm output to grow by 4% per year and
the country was producing maize surplus. A combination of a glut in the global
grain market, soaring fertilizer prices, World Bank’s structural adjustment
program in the late 1980s caused Kenya’s agricultural boom to crash. We can
say, “been there, done that”.
The Achilles’ heel of the Green
Revolution is its heavy reliance on irrigation and inputs such as hybrid seeds,
fertilizers as well as pesticides. These inputs are clearly beyond the means of
smallholder farmers and would rely on heavy subsidies. But who would pay for
such subsidies given the neoliberal policies of the dominant global financial
intuitions?
Economic pragmatists have argued that
hungry countries have no comparative advantage in agriculture and therefore
have no business farming. Hungry countries should focus on grain
self-sufficiency but should leverage investments in production and value
addition of non-grain commodities and non-agricultural products and use such earnings
to import food.
Our current food situation is an
emergent product of complex interactions among many factors, which must be
addressed. These include: a young and rapidly growing population; declining
arable land per capita; infertile soils; lack of reliable weather and climate
forecast; poor access to quality inputs (seeds, fertilizer); scarce water
resources; lack of stable land tenure rights, especially for women; lack of
affordable financial services, including insurance; lack of appropriate
mechanization; poor market access; HIV/AIDS (according to a report by FAO one
in four farm workers in the hardest hit countries like Kenya will have died of
the disease by 2020), vulnerability to climate change; and, low value addition.
Indeed daktari. Realizing food security remains top most priority for Kenya. Unfortunately, stories of relief food being given to sections of the population are almost an annual ritual in Kenya’s media. However, hunger is created and maintained, not by drought, but by human decisions.It is not that the government is not aware of the need to invest in food security, but has yet to act effectively on it. The Constitution avails a perfect opportunity to ensure that the right to food is realized. However, lack of political will to eradicate poverty, hunger & malnutrition—with the political class only identify with hunger in the event of drought and fails to invest in long term plans and strategies to eradicate the same— is still widespread. Last month, I was in Garissa to evaluate a food assistance programme in a village that is barely 400 meters from River Tana!
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