Fredrick Gori
5 May 2008
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Nairobi — The warning signs are there for all to see. Some 350,000 small-scale farmers are still living in camps for internal refugees; oil prices have hit the $120 dollar mark a barrel, pushing pump prices to an incredible high, and the cost of agricultural inputs has risen beyond what the ordinary farmer can afford.
Kenya is faced with a serious food deficit. This, no doubt, will undermine the Government's efforts to reduce poverty and equitably distribute the economic gains of the last five years.
With inflation rates up 22 per cent, most Kenyans are already struggling to put a decent meal on the table. Prices of commodities such as flour, bread, milk and vegetables have risen by between Sh5 and Sh10 in the last six months.
Apparently, Kenya is not alone. This week, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set up a high-level taskforce to deal with the global food crisis caused by rising food prices, and appealed with key producer nations to end export bans, partly blamed for the rise in food prices.
THE WARNING BY THE UN BOSS underscores the difficulties Kenya might face in dealing with food deficits.
But there is a silver lining to the impending food crisis as it presents Kenya's policymakers with the opportunity to address the recurring food shortage in a country that has the capacity to feed its population and have surplus for export.
It is hoped that Mr Ruto's idea of subsidising the cost of fertiliser will be backed by concrete action - fast. As farmers get into the weeding period, they badly need the fertiliser for top dressing. Though the Government has been reluctant to subsidise farmers, subsidies are not unique. The reason it costs six times less to grow maize in the United States is because the country heavily subsidises its farmers.
Kenya has already tasted the fruits of subsidising its primary education with nearly two million new pupils finding a place in school.
The time is ripe to do that with agriculture as well. The reason farmers are venturing into non-food agriculture like commercial tree planting is because food crop farming is no longer attractive. The cost of farm inputs is invariably higher than the output. Farmers who do not invest in good crop husbandry have to contend with poor harvests due to invasion by pests and non-productive soils.
The Government must at this point move fast and reassure farmers that it has their interests at heart, and that better days are ahead. Such an assurance, coupled with subsidies on fertiliser and seeds, is what is needed to prevent the exodus from food farming to alternative agriculture.
The second key issue is the resettlement of the 350,000 internally displaced people, many of them farmers, back to their land. If these people stay in camps beyond the planting season, we could end up with a double tragedy where the refugees will have to be fed by the Government and humanitarian agencies, while their farmlands lie in waste.
The promise by the Government to bolster security to ensure the internal refugees return to their homes was reassuring, but this can't be sustained in the long run. Measures to deal with what caused the conflict in the first place must run concurrently with the proposed security operations.
The third possible solution is to encourage farmers to grow alternative crops such as potatoes, cassava and millet, which are known hunger-beaters. Although maize is the most popular crop with farmers, it is crucial, in light of the expected food crisis, to try out these crops because they generally require fewer inputs and can endure harsh weather. However, there are key areas policy-makers must look into in order to secure Kenya's long-term food supply.
TOP ON THE LIST IS TO ENSURE farmers have access to water for their farmlands. This can only be achieved through effective management of water catchment areas, which are under threat. If our forests go, then we may as well bid goodbye to agriculture as an economic activity.
The second area involves wide ranging reforms to keep fertiliser prices within reach of farmers. The third area is infrastructure to allow produce to reach the market. It is sad that some of the agriculturally rich regions also happen to have the worst infrastructure. The importance of all-weather roads cannot be gainsaid.
These policy initiatives are not new, but they have never been treated like a matter of life and death. The time is ripe to refocus on our agriculture if we are to deal conclusively with food scarcity.
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