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Kenya: Food Shortage Stalks Kenyans
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The Nation (Nairobi)
24 March 2008
Posted to the web 24 March 2008
Ken Opala
Nairobi
Costly farm inputs and insecurity in Kenya's key food production regions are threatening the country with starvation, agricultural experts warn.
The price of requisite inputs, fertiliser and labour, have more than doubled, and farmers displaced by post-election conflict and cattle-rustling are hesitant to return to their pieces of land because of fears of a possible replay of the violence.
As a result, about half of the agricultural land in North Rift, the key maize producing area, has not been prepared for the planting season this month, according to Dr Romano Kiome, the Permanent Secretary for Agriculture.
In Trans Nzoia, which normally produces 60 per cent of the country's maize requirements, agricultural experts forecast a deficit of 500,000 bags - if conditions favour farmers. However, the figure could be as high as three million bags.
Other maize producing areas face a similar scenario.
In Uasin Ngishu, North Rift, the area agricultural officer Grace Kirui predicts a shortfall of 600,000 bags this year. And in Kericho, only one third of the farmers have planted, according to the district agricultural officer Khadija Baraza.
Thus, the country may be faced with a five million-bag food deficit - a situation that threatens to wipe out the current grain reserves by August.
This writer undertook an extensive tour of Trans Nzoia District, Kenya's bread basket, and the situation looks gloomy. Cabinet Minister Noah Wekesa - a large-scale farmer in Kwanza, which produced 23 per cent of the six million bags harvested in Trans Nzoia last year - predicts a deficit of three million bags in Trans Nzoia alone.
Apart from a reduction in the hectarage of land earmarked for maize production from last year's 109,557 hectares to the 98,000 hectares forecast for this year, the Trans Nzoia District Agricultural Office expects production levels to drop to 40 bags per acre, down from last year's projection of 60 bags, according to the Trans Nzoia West District Agricultural Officer Felicia Ndung'u.
Barring the inevitable, which includes rains and costs of inputs, the shortfall in the larger Trans Nzoia region could be three million bags.
Kipserem Maritim, the spokesperson for the National Cereals Produce Board (NCPB), Kenya's food store, says the Board had reserves of five million bags of maize three months ago - enough to sustain Kenyans for eight months.
"We are encouraging farmers who are still holding on to maize to bring it to the Board because it has the means to store it," he said. "We know there's quite some maize left out there."
Some farmers in Lugari, Uasin Ngishu and Trans Nzoia are already anticipating severe shortages by July and are holding on to their maize until the producer price goes up.
"The food security situation is grave," says Minister Wekesa, expressing surprise at reports that the food situation is quite normal. "No one in his right mind can tell Kenyans that the situation is normal," he said.
Extensive tours of the North Rift last week showed that two out of every three farmers in the food basket areas - Trans Nzoia, Lugari, Uasin Ngishu, West Pokot and parts of Nakuru - are ill-prepared.
In normal circumstances, farmers are geared for the planting season from mid-March.
A bag of Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) is selling at Sh3,800, up from Sh1,750 three months ago. Ploughing costs have doubled and farm wages have gone through the roof, says a top agriculturalist at the Kitale Agricultural Development Corporation.
If the prices are not controlled, farmers will definitely make losses, the agriculturalist warns.
"Production has to double if farmers are to make a profit, but this is almost impossible."
Minister Wekesa confirms that with the current cost of inputs, a harvest of 30-40 bags per acre will not add up to much.
Agriculture officers in the area concur that the situation is far from healthy.
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Ethnic violence and spiralling fuel prices have resulted in sharp increases in the cost of farm labour and inputs.
Thousands of farmers are yet to be convinced that the orgy of violence will not replay itself.
"How can you plant maize only to lose it later," argues Jason Okutoyi, a farmer in Kongoni area of Lugari District. Having lost a livelihood in January, I am not prepared to travel that road again. The situation is still volatile."
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