Food poverty in Kenya is contrived through policy incompetence and neglect

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As a country, Kenya has major promise, contrasts, and contradictions. It has brilliant minds in almost every field who occasionally meet to diagnose what ails specific areas and even offer possible solutions which are often shelved to fill archival spaces. They meet in various universities that hold ‘hybrid’ engagements on assorted issues, in ‘think tanks’ which issue articles, and as ‘philosophers’ debating any issue that tickles their intellectual fancy. Such was the case when Soil Scientist Stephen Kimani, a self-respecting member of the Philosophers’ Club chose to prick minds by addressing the riddle of food shortage and maldistribution in ideally rich Kenya.

The riddle is that Kenya is rich in land, richer than many countries, and yet it is poor because it fails to feed and provide for its people despite having brilliant men and women of science; the highly skilled technicians of food production chain, who are mostly found in universities and research institutions. They can connect soil molecules, explain the effect of moisture on particular crops, recommend the best ‘green’ fertiliser, and even predict likely yields. They talk of neglected small-scale farmers depleting land quality either by over-digging or over-grazing which reduces the unit yield and leads to subsequent food shortage. The challenge is therefore not lack of technical know-how. If the problem of food shortage is not technical, it must be policy and management related. Both the national and county governments, Kimani argues, could do better than they appear willing to do to empower mostly small-scale farmers and the country. He worries about policymakers neglecting the plight of small-scale farmers, those having roughly five or less acres and who struggle to be farmers in their little plots. Yet, national sovereignty hangs on the vibrancy of millions of small-scale farmers’ ability to feed themselves and those around them. Food security for millions is one way of safeguarding national security and national sovereignty. To achieve that, small-scale farmers need empowerment in the form of guidance on best farming practices, need provision of essential public services such as roads and markets, and appropriate education on how to improve the soil and the yields in the farms.

 Instead of providing what farmers need, however, policymakers appear to be lost in a world of cartels and making quick shillings as they compete in big individual consumptions. They do that in the midst of increasing mass poverty due to the declining national and county ability to feed people as a result of policy neglect. It is an attitude that creates mental dependency that negates the potential positive in order to favour the ‘outside’ and the well-placed domestic operators. This neglect is either deliberate or out of ignorance and glorifies incompetence and corruption at the expense of long-term national good. Kenya is thus among some countries that appear to ‘lease’ large tracts of land to extra-continental farmers to produce food for their populations and even ‘export’ the same to the host country.

To a large extent, therefore, food poverty in Kenya is contrived through policy incompetence and neglect which undercut national sovereignty. Such contrivance serves as political control mechanisms, favour foreign interests, and leads to surrendering of national assets. It has colonial roots with land dispossession and forced labour policies that were designed to enrich white settlers while impoverishing the ‘natives’. Post-colonial leaders inherited the negative attitudes that enhance mass poverty while displaying selective ‘aristocratic’ lifestyles.

 Kenya’s food production and distribution policies, therefore, show avoidable disconnects that lead to food insecurity and loss of sovereignty. For Kimani, by their failure to enrich soil fertility, provide infrastructure and produce markets, and by ignoring serious research, policymakers plunge the country to occasional socio-economic upheavals. Misguided and insensitive national and county food policies, whether out of deliberate mischief or ignorance, are acts of poverty creation and underdevelopment.