Features

Drought or not, it’s a shame Kenya still imports food

Monday, March 6th, 2023 11:00 | By
Tourism.CS, Peninah Malonza flags off relief food distribution in Katse market, Mumoni sub county, Kitui PHOTO/Linah Musangi

That Kenya’s economy banks on agriculture as its cornerstone yet the country is a frequent importer of basic foodstuff is a monkey we should let go of our backs.

It is unfortunate that we can showcase a smooth road network yet we cannot produce enough to feed ourselves.

Whether there is drought or not, this one slaps harder than Will Smith’s whacking of Chris Brown, and Kenyans, especially the leadership, must seek lasting solutions.

We should not be importing stuff that we can produce because that is the only way to create jobs and save millions of dollars used to import food.

Could it be that folks still consider agriculture dirty and prefer white-collar jobs yet the potential in agriculture is huge as the demand portends?

What then can be done to make agriculture sexier and more likeable so that Kenyans can farm even on small plots to make money?

Minimal value addition in the sector is worrying. It is also unfortunate that most Kenyans still look up hoping the skies will open up for rainfall.

Climate change became a major consideration in the agriculture sector, but it seems like we missed the memo, based on our knee-jerk reaction to sorting agriculture production.

While in South Africa recently, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni joked that his countrymen are lazy, claiming the landlocked country has it easy due to its proximity to the equator, and thus is able to receive two rainy seasons. This has made them so lazy that even a fool can survive in Uganda. Yes, he may be right.

This got me thinking and reminded me of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. From the bottom upwards, the needs are: physiological (food and clothing), safety (job security), love and belonging needs (friendship), esteem, and self-actualisation.

Maslow places the most basic human survival needs at the base of the pyramid, like air because they are the most essential, including food and water, clothing and shelter, health and reproduction fall in this category.

Maslow posits that an individual can move up the pyramid and self-actualize only after fulfilling physiological needs but one must first meet the basic needs. We must focus on the basics first.

Kenya cannot say that we are even trying to meet the demand for food despite having huge potential because if Kenya can push more employment in this sector, many youths will disappear from the streets into gainful employment.

Unlike Uganda, most parts of Kenya rarely get rainfall and those that do get it only once a year, and it rarely rains enough for a bumper harvest.

However, our economy is bigger with an impressive budget of Sh3.6 trillion. Unfortunately, most of it goes to recurrent expenditure (paying the salaries of civil servants). We should deploy more resources as per the Maputo declaration that called for nations to allocate at least 30 per cent of the budget to agriculture.

How we still allocate 2.4 per cent to agriculture is worrying. While this is an increase on last year’s 2.2 per cent allocation, it clearly outlines our ambitions as a nation in terms of sustainable development of agriculture.

Baring corruption, and all pitfalls in the sector, mechanised agriculture which is not rain-fed must be the talk of the sector if Kenyans want to make a business case for the sector. Other countries have done it and are feeding it. Why not Kenya?

Fortunately, youths who have seen the potential for modern agriculture have come up with several apps to enable farming even from the safety of the phone. However, they are meant for large-scale production.

This is a shame for a country that has millions of youths in need of employment.

It is about time Kenyans start having different conversations about taxing farm inputs less, cheaper fertilizers, replacing money meant for foreign travels by setting up dams for irrigation and honouring extra-ordinary farmers as heroes during public holidays.

—The writer is the Business Editor, People Daily

More on Opinion


ADVERTISEMENT