Post by Edward on Jan 5, 2006 20:29:18 GMT 3
Radical measures needed to overcome food insecurity in
Kenya
By Edward Muiru
January 03, 2005
Like in nearly every year since independence, Kenya is
again faced with famine which the government has
declared a national disaster. I would be the last to
discourage anyone from contributing to this noble and
humanitarian cause. And the first to declare that in
an ideal world, no-one should face the prospect of
hunger and starvation, let alone experience it.
But this is not an ideal world, and according to
latest news reports, tens of people have already lost
lives in the semi-arid and arid regions of the
country, in the past few weeks due to the famine,
attributed mainly to drought conditions in the past
year. So I join with the government and the people of
Kenya, and other well wishers in calling upon those,
both nationally and internationally, able and willing
to assist the hundreds of thousands threatened with
hunger, starvation, malnutrition, and possibly death,
to kindly join the effort. Assisting those in need not
only brings out the best of us; it rekindles and
enriches the best in us - at the very core of our
being.
However, some questions cannot go unasked. And this
time, let’s hope the questioning goes much further,
and beyond that level. It should lead to workable
plans towards radical, comprehensive solutions.
Solutions that will ensure that food security of the
nation is given top priority. That will indicate that
the government and people of Kenya have shifted their
thinking on the food issue, to regard it not only as a
major issue, but a national security issue.
A country, like a household, that cannot afford the
basic need of provision of food cannot go beyond the
level of subsistence. Just as such a household should
forget about accumulating wealth, investments, and a
few luxuries necessary for material comfort, the
government should forget such issues as modernization
and industrialization. It gets stuck in the basics;
for it all begins with meeting the basic needs. So, as
the Kenya government seems unable, four decades since
independence, to assure food security, it is no wonder
the country is not growing meaningfully in other
sectors. It is stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty.
Only about a third of Kenya’s land is cultivable, and
the United Nations has ranked it among countries with
insufficient water. Plus the country is mainly an
agrarian economy, with agriculture and related
activities making up for at least seventy percent of
economic output. At least sixty percent of the
population live in rural areas, and a similar number
are directly or indirectly employed in agriculture.
This means that a significant failure on agriculture
has severe cyclical effects across the economy and
society. Moreover, agriculture, all around the world,
is highly susceptible to vagaries of the weather.
Natural forces such as prolonged drought cannot be
fully predicted, let alone controlled. But they can be
prepared for.
For the last four decades, the Kenya government has
been very poor at preparing for, and mitigating
against forces such as drought and famine. And this
happens almost every year. This means that there needs
dramatic and radical change in thinking and approach.
These changes should both be done in prevention,
preparation, and action, across the board. All
approaches should be proactive, time-limited, and have
strong expectation of visible and measurable long-term
results.
A case in point where simple preventive measures have
failed or been undermined: the country’s forest cover
has been depleted by a large margin since independence
due to such issues as allocating forested areas
illegally to individuals and poor farming methods,
that have ignored the need to preserve catchments
areas, and as well as preserving soil nutrients.
Having large non-arable areas is not necessarily an
impediment, as has been seen in such countries as
Japan and Israel which hardly have any cultivable
land, yet are able to feed their
populations, and in cases retain surpluses for export.
They are simply more innovative in their methods, have
heavily prioritized on this sector, and have
broad-based support for the measures and policies.
Kenya can do that as well.
For this to happen, though, the food issue must be
delinked from politics. For, this is not a political
issue, but a national bipartisan issue. The thousands
now faced with the prospect of starvation are not
being identified by their political affiliations, but
as Kenyans. Yet their situation indicates merely a tip
of the iceberg. The problem goes deeper, much deeper.
And it requires a broad range of solutions, and
extremely strong, and radical, measures that need to
be to be initiated and prioritized across the
political, social, and economic spectrum. That is what
is required for this issue to be addressed with
sufficient width and depth, both
practically and conceptually, with strength and
seriousness, once and for all.
It calls for a radical rethinking of agriculture as it
is known in the country today, including initiating
such measures as large scale modernization, departure
from “primitive” cultivation methods, and real all
year round education and support to farmers, much
beyond the usual “forgiveness of debts owed to
government corporations.” This approach of consoling
farmers that “we understand your pain, use this band
Aid before the next drought” has to cease. Real
empowerment across the board, to feed the nation and
ensure surpluses all year round is required. The issue
of feeding the nation should never at any time have
been left to chance. And it should not be left to
chance at any time from here on.
It is not a good reputation for a country to be seen
yearly as a “beggar nation.” More so when people are
dutifully paying taxes so that the government can
initiate relevant policies, within and across sectors,
including in agriculture. The last three years alone
the government’s revenue from taxes is reported to
have grown manifold. With such increase in revenue,
corresponding results should be seen in how it
conducts it’s work.
Having a major famine relief effort, as dutifully it
has in the past, let alone a late response, indicates
a major failure on it’s part. The increased revenues
are therefore not being used to provide incentives at
the right places, create the right policies, and
initiate appropriate action. Something is still going
very wrong, and something radical has to be done as a
matter of priority.
For a beginning, the government should invite a wide
ranging group of experts, individuals, organizations,
and the civil service to get to the root of the
problem. Once the problem had been clearly and broadly
defined, then solutions should be sought. It should
then set up an implementation task force with a
tenyear mandate, and that has security of tenure of
office. There need no emphasis that this task force
should include the best and the brightest in related
areas. Then it should get down to serious work. It
should be accountable to the public, the legislature,
private sector, and the government. All it’s
activities must be accounted for and be transparent.
It is time for the country to decide to confront this
issue of hunger.
And whatever the cross-sectoral resources that may be
invested, results and reports towards this end must be
provided semi-annually and annually, for the next
decade. This time horizon is a realistic long term
horizon, by which not a single person in Kenya should
encounter the prospect of hunger and starvation, let
alone experience it. It is within this time that if
underground irrigation of arid lands, if needed, and
as has been done in Israel, will have been done and
made fully operational. The time within which the
waste in agriculture through underemployment and other
forms of disguised employment will have been
eradicated. The time within which a strong marketing
and storage system will have been set up, and made
operational. The time within which less of the
workforce and people will be involved in low-value and
often wasteful of resources’ in primary agricultural
production, and be employed in a modern agricultural
system running on latest methods, machinery,
innovations, and systems.
Within this time the country must continue to
increasingly rely less on primary agricultural
activities, and move towards industrialized,
innovative, and information societies. That time
horizon, with a detailed progress report at
half-decade, must be used to galvanize society towards
food security, and optimization in
agriculturalproduction in all it’s forms.
By standards of many world countries, Kenya is a
blessed country, with many natural resources, and a
very resourceful populace. It major weakness have been
it’s politics and policies. And these, for a large
part, have been wasteful and retrogressive, resulting
to sub-optimal outcomes across society. It is time for
a change.
This generation of leaders, the workforce, and
population in the
country must be remembered as the one that departed
from the past in a radical manner. One which endured
the pain needed to connect the country with itself,
after living four decades of self-imposed denial.
Great leaders and statesmen of the past are not
remembered for how much they avoided issues; however
unpleasant they were at the time. But for how they
confronted them despite prevailing conditions. The
current peoples of the country have no excuse either.
They must respond; as those who came before us did,
and for which we are eternally grateful.
The current famine relief efforts need to continue,
with vigor, so that those threatened with hunger and
starvation can coast through this crisis. But let it
not be lost that this is similar to handing a fish, or
rather a lifeline to a person, and it is that
temporary. The permanent solution lies in a radical,
comprehensive, and accountable process with a strict
timeline and
end-time.
It would be good to see the government ask for less
food donations for it’s people next year, and
increasingly the next year, and the year after. It
would be impressive to see the government and the
people of the country cease taking drought as a
convenient excuse for failure and procrastination on
their part, but as a natural geographic reality whose
threat is always present but which is not restricted
to the country alone. The country simply does not have
a disproportionate share of it’s prospect. Nature can
be indiscriminate, but the most prepared fare well.
Strong, comprehensive solutions are needed towards
food security, red-fined as a national security issue
in Kenya. Empowerment towards teaching how to ‘fish’
as superior to providing a fish during emergency is
needed and depoliticizing the food issue, as well as
other social and economic development issues is
necessary.
Let the current relief efforts continue, both
nationally and internationally. But also let it be a
beginning of the end of this pattern. Let the
countdown towards “Operation Sustainably Feed Kenya”
begin. The clock has started ticking.
* The writer comments on broad-based global issues. He is based in the United States
Kenya
By Edward Muiru
January 03, 2005
Like in nearly every year since independence, Kenya is
again faced with famine which the government has
declared a national disaster. I would be the last to
discourage anyone from contributing to this noble and
humanitarian cause. And the first to declare that in
an ideal world, no-one should face the prospect of
hunger and starvation, let alone experience it.
But this is not an ideal world, and according to
latest news reports, tens of people have already lost
lives in the semi-arid and arid regions of the
country, in the past few weeks due to the famine,
attributed mainly to drought conditions in the past
year. So I join with the government and the people of
Kenya, and other well wishers in calling upon those,
both nationally and internationally, able and willing
to assist the hundreds of thousands threatened with
hunger, starvation, malnutrition, and possibly death,
to kindly join the effort. Assisting those in need not
only brings out the best of us; it rekindles and
enriches the best in us - at the very core of our
being.
However, some questions cannot go unasked. And this
time, let’s hope the questioning goes much further,
and beyond that level. It should lead to workable
plans towards radical, comprehensive solutions.
Solutions that will ensure that food security of the
nation is given top priority. That will indicate that
the government and people of Kenya have shifted their
thinking on the food issue, to regard it not only as a
major issue, but a national security issue.
A country, like a household, that cannot afford the
basic need of provision of food cannot go beyond the
level of subsistence. Just as such a household should
forget about accumulating wealth, investments, and a
few luxuries necessary for material comfort, the
government should forget such issues as modernization
and industrialization. It gets stuck in the basics;
for it all begins with meeting the basic needs. So, as
the Kenya government seems unable, four decades since
independence, to assure food security, it is no wonder
the country is not growing meaningfully in other
sectors. It is stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty.
Only about a third of Kenya’s land is cultivable, and
the United Nations has ranked it among countries with
insufficient water. Plus the country is mainly an
agrarian economy, with agriculture and related
activities making up for at least seventy percent of
economic output. At least sixty percent of the
population live in rural areas, and a similar number
are directly or indirectly employed in agriculture.
This means that a significant failure on agriculture
has severe cyclical effects across the economy and
society. Moreover, agriculture, all around the world,
is highly susceptible to vagaries of the weather.
Natural forces such as prolonged drought cannot be
fully predicted, let alone controlled. But they can be
prepared for.
For the last four decades, the Kenya government has
been very poor at preparing for, and mitigating
against forces such as drought and famine. And this
happens almost every year. This means that there needs
dramatic and radical change in thinking and approach.
These changes should both be done in prevention,
preparation, and action, across the board. All
approaches should be proactive, time-limited, and have
strong expectation of visible and measurable long-term
results.
A case in point where simple preventive measures have
failed or been undermined: the country’s forest cover
has been depleted by a large margin since independence
due to such issues as allocating forested areas
illegally to individuals and poor farming methods,
that have ignored the need to preserve catchments
areas, and as well as preserving soil nutrients.
Having large non-arable areas is not necessarily an
impediment, as has been seen in such countries as
Japan and Israel which hardly have any cultivable
land, yet are able to feed their
populations, and in cases retain surpluses for export.
They are simply more innovative in their methods, have
heavily prioritized on this sector, and have
broad-based support for the measures and policies.
Kenya can do that as well.
For this to happen, though, the food issue must be
delinked from politics. For, this is not a political
issue, but a national bipartisan issue. The thousands
now faced with the prospect of starvation are not
being identified by their political affiliations, but
as Kenyans. Yet their situation indicates merely a tip
of the iceberg. The problem goes deeper, much deeper.
And it requires a broad range of solutions, and
extremely strong, and radical, measures that need to
be to be initiated and prioritized across the
political, social, and economic spectrum. That is what
is required for this issue to be addressed with
sufficient width and depth, both
practically and conceptually, with strength and
seriousness, once and for all.
It calls for a radical rethinking of agriculture as it
is known in the country today, including initiating
such measures as large scale modernization, departure
from “primitive” cultivation methods, and real all
year round education and support to farmers, much
beyond the usual “forgiveness of debts owed to
government corporations.” This approach of consoling
farmers that “we understand your pain, use this band
Aid before the next drought” has to cease. Real
empowerment across the board, to feed the nation and
ensure surpluses all year round is required. The issue
of feeding the nation should never at any time have
been left to chance. And it should not be left to
chance at any time from here on.
It is not a good reputation for a country to be seen
yearly as a “beggar nation.” More so when people are
dutifully paying taxes so that the government can
initiate relevant policies, within and across sectors,
including in agriculture. The last three years alone
the government’s revenue from taxes is reported to
have grown manifold. With such increase in revenue,
corresponding results should be seen in how it
conducts it’s work.
Having a major famine relief effort, as dutifully it
has in the past, let alone a late response, indicates
a major failure on it’s part. The increased revenues
are therefore not being used to provide incentives at
the right places, create the right policies, and
initiate appropriate action. Something is still going
very wrong, and something radical has to be done as a
matter of priority.
For a beginning, the government should invite a wide
ranging group of experts, individuals, organizations,
and the civil service to get to the root of the
problem. Once the problem had been clearly and broadly
defined, then solutions should be sought. It should
then set up an implementation task force with a
tenyear mandate, and that has security of tenure of
office. There need no emphasis that this task force
should include the best and the brightest in related
areas. Then it should get down to serious work. It
should be accountable to the public, the legislature,
private sector, and the government. All it’s
activities must be accounted for and be transparent.
It is time for the country to decide to confront this
issue of hunger.
And whatever the cross-sectoral resources that may be
invested, results and reports towards this end must be
provided semi-annually and annually, for the next
decade. This time horizon is a realistic long term
horizon, by which not a single person in Kenya should
encounter the prospect of hunger and starvation, let
alone experience it. It is within this time that if
underground irrigation of arid lands, if needed, and
as has been done in Israel, will have been done and
made fully operational. The time within which the
waste in agriculture through underemployment and other
forms of disguised employment will have been
eradicated. The time within which a strong marketing
and storage system will have been set up, and made
operational. The time within which less of the
workforce and people will be involved in low-value and
often wasteful of resources’ in primary agricultural
production, and be employed in a modern agricultural
system running on latest methods, machinery,
innovations, and systems.
Within this time the country must continue to
increasingly rely less on primary agricultural
activities, and move towards industrialized,
innovative, and information societies. That time
horizon, with a detailed progress report at
half-decade, must be used to galvanize society towards
food security, and optimization in
agriculturalproduction in all it’s forms.
By standards of many world countries, Kenya is a
blessed country, with many natural resources, and a
very resourceful populace. It major weakness have been
it’s politics and policies. And these, for a large
part, have been wasteful and retrogressive, resulting
to sub-optimal outcomes across society. It is time for
a change.
This generation of leaders, the workforce, and
population in the
country must be remembered as the one that departed
from the past in a radical manner. One which endured
the pain needed to connect the country with itself,
after living four decades of self-imposed denial.
Great leaders and statesmen of the past are not
remembered for how much they avoided issues; however
unpleasant they were at the time. But for how they
confronted them despite prevailing conditions. The
current peoples of the country have no excuse either.
They must respond; as those who came before us did,
and for which we are eternally grateful.
The current famine relief efforts need to continue,
with vigor, so that those threatened with hunger and
starvation can coast through this crisis. But let it
not be lost that this is similar to handing a fish, or
rather a lifeline to a person, and it is that
temporary. The permanent solution lies in a radical,
comprehensive, and accountable process with a strict
timeline and
end-time.
It would be good to see the government ask for less
food donations for it’s people next year, and
increasingly the next year, and the year after. It
would be impressive to see the government and the
people of the country cease taking drought as a
convenient excuse for failure and procrastination on
their part, but as a natural geographic reality whose
threat is always present but which is not restricted
to the country alone. The country simply does not have
a disproportionate share of it’s prospect. Nature can
be indiscriminate, but the most prepared fare well.
Strong, comprehensive solutions are needed towards
food security, red-fined as a national security issue
in Kenya. Empowerment towards teaching how to ‘fish’
as superior to providing a fish during emergency is
needed and depoliticizing the food issue, as well as
other social and economic development issues is
necessary.
Let the current relief efforts continue, both
nationally and internationally. But also let it be a
beginning of the end of this pattern. Let the
countdown towards “Operation Sustainably Feed Kenya”
begin. The clock has started ticking.
* The writer comments on broad-based global issues. He is based in the United States