Kenyan Farmers Abandon Food Crops to Grow Herbal Stimulant

At this time of year, Albert Njeru's farm would usually be blanketed with shoulder-high rows of maize.

But not anymore. Now the fields of grain are gone, replaced by 2 acres (0.80 hectares) of bushy green muguka leaves, a potent legal stimulant that relieves fatigue.

"Muguka gives me a lot of money. Farming maize or beans used to give me losses," said the 45-year-old farmer at his home in Kanyuambora, a village in central Kenya.

As drought and erratic weather wreak havoc across rural Kenya, a growing number of farmers are abandoning traditional crops like maize and rice for the more lucrative muguka.

Njeru can make 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($290) in just one week selling muguka - five times more than he used to make selling maize or beans.

"It is green gold," he said.

A variety of khat, which produces a mild high when chewed, muguka is fast-growing, making it less vulnerable to large swings in weather conditions, and uses about half as much water as maize, Njeru explained.

The strain grown in Embu County, home to Njeru's farm, is strong and so consumers can buy less than with the other popular variety, miraa, which is grown further north in Meru. That is good news for muguka producers like Njeru, who said he was struggling to cultivate enough to keep up with demand.

But it is bad news for food supplies, said agriculture experts and local politicians, who warned of a potential food crop shortage as farmers clear their fields of staples to make way for muguka.

"Farmers are not interested in growing maize anymore. They want money in their pockets. Muguka is giving them that and a lot more, since they can use the profits to buy more nutritious food," said Martin Mwangi, a member of Embu County's assembly.

"But the long-term consequences could lead to food insecurity due to reduced production."

He pointed to neighbouring Kirinyaga County, where farmers are known for growing Kenya's highest-quality rice.

"Water used for irrigating rice is now being diverted into muguka fields," he cautioned.

DRUGS OR FOOD?

There is no official record of how many farmers have switched from growing food crops to muguka, said Mwangi. Nor is there data on how much land is being used for muguka, according to Kenya's Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA).

But Francis Kimori, chairman of the Mbeere Muguka Farmers Sacco, a savings and credit cooperative, estimated four out of every five households around the Mount Kenya region, including in Embu County, are farming the stimulant in some quantity.


Many have upgraded from mud huts to modern stone houses, he said. "It is changing livelihoods," he added.

Factors like failing rains and new pests, linked to climate change, have likely played a role in muguka's popularity at the expense of time-honoured crops such as maize, said Dickson Kibata, a technical officer at the AFA. Yet despite the extra income muguka brings, Kibata warned against relying solely on the narcotic plant.

"Cash-crop farming cannot be the silver bullet that will pull farmers out of poverty, because consumption patterns keep changing," he said by phone. "My advice to muguka farmers is to mix it with food crop farming to ensure the family food basket is secure, even as they look for money."

FOREST WARNING

Environmentalists and lawmakers have also voiced concerns over the impact of the stimulant cultivation boom on forests.

Every few months, the Atiriri Bururi ma Chuka community conservation group in Tharaka Nithi County reports several locals illegally growing an edible form of cannabis known as bhang in local forests, said its chairman Ngai M'Uboro. He expects it is only a matter of time before he and his colleagues start uncovering muguka farming in the area.

"If the forest is already suffering because of grazing and bhang, it will not be long before we see muguka growing in the forest," he said.

Muguka's potency is also making the authorities uncomfortable. In 2018, legislators in Mombasa and Kwale counties lobbied unsuccessfully for a sales and consumption ban on muguka over fears of addiction among young people.

The National Authority for the Campaign Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse supported the move, citing social and health worries.

"Muguka is worse than hard drugs because of its highly addictive nature. It is ruining homes, the country's youth and should be banned," said Victor Okioma, its chief executive.

SUPERMARKET SHELVES?

Yet, even with all the risks attached to muguka, many Kenyan farmers are hoping it will save their livelihoods.

Along a 300-km (185-mile) stretch of cropland from the edges of the capital Nairobi to the lowlands opening into northern Kenya, maize farmers have been struggling with drought.

Purity Muthoni, 32, a farmer from Kiriani village in central Kenya, said she would not hesitate to switch to muguka if she could. But the weather and soils where she lives, some 150 km from Njeru, are not suitable for growing the plant, she said.

Noting the risks of depending on one crop as a source of income, the Embu County government last year said it would start distributing macadamia and avocado seeds to farmers to help them diversify their cash crops.

But Njeru is not convinced any other crop can earn him the same returns he gets from muguka. If local leaders really wanted to help farmers, he said, they should find ways to add value to the plant by enhancing their access to industrial processing and retail opportunities.

"I will be very happy the day I see packaged muguka being sold in supermarkets as a quality-assured product," he said.

($1 = 102.9000 Kenyan shillings)

Original article...

Kenyan Farmers Grow Maize For Animal Feeds Amid Changing Climate

About a decade ago, maize was mainly grown in Kenya as a food crop, with the cereal being the east African nation’s staple. Over the years, however, many farmers are growing the crop for animal feeds in a shift prompted by the changing climatic conditions.

While some of the farmers, who are dairy keepers, are growing the crop to feed their herd, others are farming it for sale in what has turned out to be a more profitable business.

The rains in Kenya have become extremely erratic, affecting maize growing which is mainly rain-fed in the east African nation. This year, for instance, the long rain season in Kenya that usually lasts for three months from March to May was barely a month long, according to the Meteorological Department. This affected maize planting, with most of the crop in the country’s breadbaskets of western and Rift Valley currently at tussling stage instead of being harvested.

In other regions, however, most of the crop failed due to low rains. But farmers who plant the crop for making animal feeds – mainly silage – harvest at an early stage thus avoid ending up with a failed crop due to erratic weather.

Maize prices currently stand at an average of 3,500 shillings (about 33 U.S. dollars) for a 90kg bag but prices normally decline to as low as 10 dollars when most farmers harvest.

... the early harvesting saves farmers the cost of fighting pests, harvesting, drying and storing the grain before transporting it to the market for sale.

Maize is harvested for making silage at four months when their seeds are soft, but not milky if squeezed open. If harvested at the right stage, the crop has more starch than sugar.

Full article...

Some Ivorian farmers abandon cocoa to cultivate rubber trees

An increasing number of farmers in Ivory Coast are leaving the perceived difficulties of cultivating cocoa, the country's main cash crop, to instead grow rubber trees, which are considered to be a more secure source, less troublesome source of income.

This is according to a news report by Reuters, which says the cocoa industry hopes that reforms currently underway assure better prices for the crop's farmers will help stem the tide to cultivating alternative crops.

Liberia is the African country most often associated with rubber, but Ivorian rubber production reached an all-time high of 234,000 tonnes in 2011, from 183,000 tonnes in 2007.

An Ivorian rubber industry group said rubber was grown on 318,000 hectares of land in 2011, compared to
304,000 hectares in 2010. An additional 15,000 hectares of rubber trees are to be planted in 2012.

The Singapore-based International Rubber Study Group said the Ivory Coast had a plan to achieve 600,000 tonnes of rubber by the end of 2020, for which planting would have to be in place by 2013.

African Agriculture

The news report says for some farmers, rubber trees are seen as a safer bet than cocoa. They provide a more regular monthly income than seasonal cocoa, and rubber prices are more stable.

Some farmers are said to be cutting down their aging cocoa trees to replace them with rubber seedlings. An cocoa to replace the country's old cocoa bushes with new plantings that are higher yielding and more pest-resistant is underway. But whether this will slow the trend of farmers diversifying to rubber will depend on cocoa prices.

 

New Zimbabwe farmers look to raising crocodiles

by Zwanai Sithole



Crocodile farming is one of Zimbabwe's highest animal export earners, alongside ostrich rearing. One of the black farmers running a successful crocodile rearing project at his farm in Binga is Owen Ndlovu. The farm, which is located on the shore of the Zambezi River, produces about 70 tonnes of meat and skins annually which are exported to Asian markets, particularly China.

“I started crocodile farming in 2009 after successfully applying for a permit from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management. I started with a small number of crocodiles, but now I have got more than 10 000,” said Ndlovu.

This season, which ended in September, the company recorded 2000 hatchlings. “We have also 200 breeders which we bought from a leading commercial farmer in Kariba. The farmer is also assisting us in running the project,” he said. His company also sources eggs from the local people who find them on the shore of the river.

“We are buying a lot of eggs from the local people. Next year we aim to be self-sufficient in terms of eggs because we are hoping to secure more breeders” he said.

Ndlovu complained about the high cost of crocodile feed which his company sources from South Africa. “We are buying our crocodile feed in South Africa at a very high rate. Meat for the breeders has also gone up. We need five beasts every month to feed the crocodiles,” he said.

Crocodile products are in high demand in Asia and Europe where they are used for a variety of purposes such as leisurewear and medicine. Crocodile is also a very popular delicacy in restaurants.

It is estimated that the country earns more than $100 million a year through the export of meat and skins to countries such as Japan, Singapore, the United States and Australia. The country’s varied terrain and hospitable climate provide an ideal habitat for crocodiles.


The Zimbabwean

Food security concern as Kenyan farmers switch from maize to coffee

The switch by many farmers in Kenya's Rift Valley province from staple cereals to more profitable coffee is likely to increase the country's dependence on grain imports and possibly affect food security, agricultural experts have warned.

"It is unsafe to use our land for crops with the hopes of being fed by other countries," said James Nyoro, managing director for Africa of the Rockefeller Foundation, which works to "promote the wellbeing of humanity around the world. What if these countries do not harvest excess for us?"

Kenya will have to import 2.3 million tonnes of cereal during the 2011-2012 marketing year to meet demand, a year-on-year increase of 37 percent, according to the UN Food and Agricultural Organization, which estimated domestic harvests of maize - a staple for 90 percent of Kenyans - at 2.5 million tonnes, down 18 percent because of poor weather.

This import dependency and the threat posed by increased coffee growing could be mitigated with the use of improved inputs by cereal growers, Nyoro said. Another food security specialist recommended improving storage conditions of grain after it is harvested, when some 30 percent of production is traditionally lost.

In the meantime, any additional costs accrued by importing will be passed on to consumers.

"There is inflation already, joblessness and low purchasing power for many Kenyans; if food prices go higher than they have in the recent past then the number of people accessing even two meals a day will be much lower," Nyoro said.

"The Rift Valley is the country's granary; it is where most people get their food from. Increased coffee growing could compromise the country's grain basket," said one food security specialist, who asked not to be identified.

"If we lose significant land in the province to coffee, we have to weigh what we gain in the process. If coffee pays better and farmers can [by investing in inputs] improve the yield of maize crop in the acreage they put under maize, perhaps this could be the trade-off," the specialist said, recommending that the government undertake a feasibility study on the implications of expanding coffee production in the Rift Valley.

A draft of Kenya's land-use policy has been submitted to parliament and has yet to be debated for subsequent enactment.

There is little data available about how much former cereal-growing land in the province is now used to produce coffee. But in just one of its 50-odd districts, Trans Nzoia, the area under maize cultivation has fallen by 450 hectares over the last year, according to an agricultural officer there.

Across the province, areas of coffee cultivation grew by an annual 20 percent over the past two years, said Bonface Wekesa, manager of a new milling plant in the town of Eldoret.

"We have distributed over one million seedlings of coffee over the last one year and have even run short as the current demand stands at double what we have distributed to farmers," Wekesa said, explaining that typically 2,200 seedlings would be planted on each hectare of land.

Coffee offers much better returns to farmers at a time when traditional coffee-growing areas in the centre of the country have been greatly reduced by real-estate developments.

In the past year, more than 2,000ha of coffee-growing land in Kiambu County, which neighbours the capital, Nairobi, have been given over to developers.

Farmers in Rift Valley, according to agronomist Zabron Njoroge, "have been growing a lot of cereals to feed the nation while their pockets are left empty. It is their time to fill their pockets with income from the same farms.

"Maybe it's time the government started massive irrigation in arid and semi-arid areas," he said.

Joseph Kurui, a farmer and father of 10 in Tindiret, in Rift Valley's Nandi County, told IRIN: "I have already planted coffee in 14 [5.7ha] out of my 21 acres [8.5ha]. I am waiting for seedlings to plant in six more acres and will only reserve one acre to plant maize for family consumption."

Whereas 0.4047ha of maize earns him about Ksh25,000 (US$280) coffee delivers 10 times that, he said.

"A serious farmers who follows instructions from agronomists can make even more than Sh500,000 per acre," said Wekesa.

Symon Mahungu, a food and agricultural scientist at Egerton University in Nakuru, Rift Valley's provincial capital, said although coffee's growing popularity could reduce cereal production, it would not affect people's access to food, at least in the province.

"If these farmers are not accessing food through selling their maize but are well fed buying food from the proceeds of coffee, then this means they are food secure," Mahungu told IRIN, adding that food security was not a matter of the amount of food produced from farms but, rather, people's ability to access food.

He added: "Maize has been imported even when local farmers have their granaries full; let them [farmers] grow what suits their pockets best."

IRIN

Crop diversification should be part of dealing with climate change threat to West African cocoa

Climate change may make many parts of West Africa too hot for the growing of cocoa by the year 2050, according to a new report by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). The report predicts that the region will experience a one degree Celcius temperature increase by 2030, going up to 2.3 degrees by 2050.

More than 50% of global cocoa is grown by small holder farmers in Ivory Coast and Ghana, with Nigeria also being an important producer.

According to the report, ''Warmer conditions mean the heat-sensitive cocoa trees will struggle to get enough water during the growing season, curtailing the development of cocoa pods, containing the prized cocoa bean – the key ingredient in chocolate production. The trees are also expected to struggle as the region’s dry season becomes increasingly intense.''

Some of these effects are already being seen in marginal cocoa-growing areas, and are expected to spread.

Peter Laderach, the report’s lead author, is quoted as saying, ''These findings are severe but preparation is the name of the game. There is a lot that farmers, governments, scientists – and key players in the cocoa supply chains – can do to help protect and improve cocoa production. But these measures need to be implemented very quickly.”

Among those suggested measures are investments in improved irrigation systems, and scientific research into more heat-tolerant cocoa plant varieties. The report also predicts that the ideal cocoa growing areas will shift to higher altitudes, to compensate for the higher temperatures. However, Laderach points out that west Africa is mostly flat, making this is a limited solution.

Failure to save the cocoa industry would have devastating consequences because of its key role in the lives of farmers and the economies of the major growing countries.  

Africa has recently had experience with other once-dominant crops whose competitiveness has been lost or severely challenged, with disastrous results.

In many countries that grew cotton, the sector  maintains just a small portion of its former glory. Among the reasons are subsidies for cotton growers in major growing countries like the US, China and Brazil as well as lower productivity. Countries in southern and eastern Africa that are suitable for  growing a variety of crops shifted their emphasis to other crops, though the hotter, drier parts that were particularly suitable for cotton often did not find an alternative anywhere as lucrative. 

However, African cotton's problems are close to being perpetual crises in the West African countries where cotton is the main or a major cash crop: Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad and Niger. In these hot, arid Sahelian countries where cotton is as important to the economies as cocoa is to Ivory Coast or Ghana, there is no quick or obvious answer to the decline of the sector. Efforts to improve productivity (eg GM cotton) or seek alternative markets (e.g. organic cotton) are underway, but it is far from clear that they will significantly address the structural problems faced by cotton farming in West Africa.Yet there are no readily, easily available alternative 'cash crops' to cotton in these countries. This may be a slowly unfolding social and economic disaster unfolding disaster before us that no one has yet suggested a viable solution to.

In the relatively few countries that grow it, vanilla was at one time a type of 'white gold' like cotton once was in many others. Madagascar dominated the world vanilla market and sought to maintain that lead position by manipulating production levels to keep volumes produced and exported under control, and to therefore keep global demand and prices high. 

Madagascar's restricted vanilla exports made it possible for competitors with higher prices to find buyers and erode its market share. The overall high world prices for vanilla also kept demand lower than it might have been if the sector were fully 'free.' Madagascar's growing vanilla stocks and declining global position eventually contributed to a decline of prices and the sector, affecting growers in Uganda and other countries that had joined the once-lucrative vanilla bandwagon. Madagascar then instituted a comprehensive reform
of the vanilla sector, but it has never achieved the height of its peak in the 1980s. As in many economies that mainly depend on one or a few commodities, there were no easy alternatives for devastated vanilla farmers to turn to for their livelihood.

Then there is Africa's coming maize disaster, based on the unsustainable over-dependence of many countries on this increasingly Africa-unsuitable crop. If the CIAT cocoa projection has come as a shock, that cannot be said for climate change's effects on the growing of maize. For years African farmers have struggled to maintain already low maize yields. In addition to declining soil fertility has been added the reality of an increasingly maize-unfriendly climate.   

There is a scramble by different interest groups to sell their idea as the answer to this huge, continent-wide calamity-in-development. GM and hybrid maize of various claimed advantages (faster maturing, water efficient, etc) are the mix of solutions being offered. But regardless of how well any or all of these much hyped solutions work according to the parameter set by the promoters who have so much invested in them, no one is able to even guess if they will be up to the task of compensating for climate change-caused reductions in maize growing areas.

If that decline in maize-suitable areas is significant and cannot be offset by higher yields in the remaining maize-suitable areas, maize-preferring Africans will have to find something or other starch crops to 'prefer.' Experience over many previous instances of maize shortages all over the continent suggests that large-scale importation of maize is simply not a realistic solution.

The work of thinking of, trying and beginning to market those probably inevitably needed maize alternatives is too important to be left until the crisis gets much worse. It should start now.

A similar diversification urgency may be called for in response to the warnings about the likely effects of climate change on growing cocoa in West Africa. As the examples given here illustrate, it is far from certain that efforts to ''protect and improve cocoa production'' will be successful. Apart from the many technical, capacity and many other problems that plague African agriculture in general, no one can accurately predict the exact levels of the forecast temperature changes, nor their effects on the ability to cultivate cocoa.If both are more severe than predicted, the impact would be extremely serious for the global chocolate industry, but catastrophic for the countries and farmers affected. The examples of other once lucrative crops in other parts of Africa show, however, that those catastrophic effects may be far from easy to avoid.

Cocoa was an introduced cash crop that unlike many others has more or less consistently had an assured global market and good reasonably good returns even for the farmers who are at the bottom of the supply chain in terms of benefit per effort. It would be far from easy to find a crop with anywhere near the same combination of economic qualities. Yet if cocoa climate change-coping strategies in West Africa do not also at least include diversification away from over-reliance on this so far successful crop, economic disasters that have taken place elsewhere when the main cash crop collapses can be predicted.

African Agriculture   

Some U.S. farms switch from tobacco to crops for African immigrants

by April Fulton


For the last 10 years, U.S. farmers in tobacco-growing states have been slowly saying goodbye to that old leaf in favor of other crops.

Of course, there's lots of corn and soy replacing tobacco, but some farms are testing out specialty crops that appeal to recent immigrants.

George Bowling's farm in southern Maryland is one such place. He started growing African vegetables about a year ago, but he has worked on farms growing corn and tobacco for much of his 70-something years.




"I've had the African eggplant, I've had the hot peppers, yellow tomatoes, red tomatoes, okra, and potato leaves, watermelon, cantaloupe," Bowling says, pulling his dusty baseball cap down to shade his eyes.


This year, seven acres of his 60-acre farm were dedicated mainly to new African crops he hadn't planted before — something of an experiment, he says.


Bowling's wife, Julia, says they started researching African crops after some customers asked for sweet potato leaves to cook with. Sweet potato leaves are used like spinach in many cultures, added to a stir fry or an African stew

"We'd never heard of anybody that ate sweet potato leaf, and when we plowed our sweet potatoes last year, that's when they first started coming in," she says.



Customers asked Bowling to plant African produce and said they would come to pick it, she says, so he gave it a shot. He ordered specialty seeds for vegetables like "garden eggs" — tiny green African eggplants — and chocolate habanero peppers, and planted them.


And now many customers come to Bowling's farm, picking 16-pound bags of hot peppers at a time. They load up their cars, drive home, tell their friends and come back for more. It's mostly word-of-mouth marketing.


If you can find these peppers at a specialty market, they are often expensive or dried out, says Gladys Fontem, who is originally from Cameroon. She wears surgical gloves to protect her hands while picking the hot peppers. She comes to pick, she says, because the peppers here are fresh and the farm is clean.


"You can't cook without peppers," says Fontem. "We love that spicy stuff."


But there's another reason they come, according to her sister, Ara: "It gives us a taste of home. The smell, the fields, it's like we're back home."



There's a big market for African crops in the D.C. area. Nearly 120,000 people born in Africa live in the metro area, according to the U.S. Census.


In other parts of the country, the foods of home are different. A recent study by Rutgers showed that the demand for Mexican, Indian, Chinese and Puerto Rican produce is worth more than a billion dollars — on the East Coast alone.


As tobacco taxes have gone up and imported tobacco has flooded the market, many farmers are looking to try new things.


In Maryland, the state gave some farmers an incentive. In 2000, it offered to buy out farmers who grew significant amounts of tobacco if they promised to stop growing tobacco but keep their land in agriculture for 10 years. More than 80 percent took the offer, according to Christine Bergmark of the Southern Maryland Agricultural Development Commission, the agency that administers the tobacco program.


So some farmers are trying out wine grapes, some are giving public farm tours and Halloween hayrides, and some are testing African and other specialty ethnic crops.


African crops are fairly new, but they are not just limited to the ethnic market. Some farmers are even starting to take their products to urban farmers markets and high-end restaurants.



Growing new crops in this climate isn't easy.


Yao Afantcho came to Maryland from Togo about 20 years ago. He missed the taste of home, and brought seeds with him to experiment. He tried peppers and melons, and more exotic things like edible hibiscus and jute leaves. Turns out they grow fairly well, but they take some adjustments.


"We have few problems. We have a weather problem. This is a temperate zone and so the growing period is shorter," he says.


Eventually, the University of Maryland hired him to help set up a program that would educate farmers about how to grow the crops and find markets. He still works with several Maryland farmers, as well as with city garden farmers through the University of the District of Columbia.


But farming is not easy work, no matter what is growing. With the hot, rainless July and the downpours of August, it's been tough, says farmer Bowling. He lost a field full of cantaloupe.


"A total loss almost," he says, pointing to the withered vines. "But that's farming."


Still, Bowling doesn't miss tobacco. Even though he says he's retired, he puts in 15-hour days now. I ask him if he makes any money.

"I probably got a net return of a dollar an hour now... this is a lot of hard work and kind of a minimal return," he says.


So, why do it?


"I just love dealing with people," he says.


He also loves the farm, and this area — Charles County — where he grew up.


"We've got it all, we've got mountains in the back, [the Chesapeake] Bay on the East, Potomac River there, I can go to the bay and fish and crab, I mean, what else could you want?"

NPR

African maize dependence needlessly increases the chances of every drought becoming a famine

by Chido Makunike

Unfortunately, as surely as night turns into day, every few years there is famine in eastern Africa. This one is being blamed on 'the region's worst drought in 60 years.'

Other than that indication of the severity of this drought's rain shortfall, there seems nothing else about it that is different from previous regional famines, which is disturbing. The familiar predictability of the course of the famine is depressing.

A severe reduction in seasonal rainfall may be the immediate cause of drought leading to the famine that is being witnessed. But that incorrectly suggests a sudden, unexpected calamity. Each season's 'drought' can be said to be unexpected because of the inherent unpredictability of climate, but the famine that is playing out now has been building up for some years. As many commentators are pointing out, drought need not necessarily, automatically lead to famine.

However, the de-linking of drought and famine requires complex multi-sector coordination over many years, by all the government and related actors whose job it is to prevent calamities like starvation. That there is yet another famine in Africa today is the clearest evidence that this sort of coordination has simply not taken place in the last few years that there have been many signs of dramatically decreased and/or changed rainfall patterns.   

As with every famine, there are bitter recriminations taking place. In Kenya the government has been on the defensive against charges that it failed to heed the warning signs and to do enough to prepare for the worst in its most drought-affected northern regions. Other governments in the region have either tried to downplay the seriousness of the problem in their countries, or to over-estimate their coping strategies.    

In the mountains of volumes that are being written about the world's latest famine, it is astonishing how little the most fundamental, simplest questions feature:

Since 'droughts' are becoming increasingly as predictable as good rains once were, why are they still so often allowed to become famines? Why haven't the preparation/coping strategies (of governments, NGOs, donors, investors, research organizations, etc) caught up with the knowledge of the increasing regularity of drought?

This gap between having the basic facts and failing to plan/act appropriately on them is perhaps best illustrated by the attitude to maize in much of Africa. In many African countries, famine primarily means 'there is not enough available and/or affordable maize,' even if it of course also means much more than that.  

For maize to do well it requires relatively nutrient-rich soils and relatively high amounts of water compared to other grains. Since both soil quality and rainfall amounts are increasingly challenged in many maize-dependent regions, including much of the area of the current east African famine, why is there such a huge continuing investment/commitment to a crop that seems clearly decreasingly suited to the region? 

Yet all the region's agro-actors; from consumers, farmers, governments, the private sector and  pretty much all others in the agricultural/nutritional chain continue to reverentially behave towards maize as if these are normal times.

Maize might have been well-adapted to its new environment in Africa for a few hundred years since its introduction from South America by the European colonists, but all the signs are that it isn't any longer. So far the scramble by researchers to introduce newly adaptive varieties hasn't caught up with the scale and speed of the negative changes in Africa's maize-growing environment.

With bigger grains than better-adapted small grains like sorghum and millet, maize was easier to plant, harvest, shell and mill, whether manually or mechanically. The African palate obviously took to the taste, although most milled maize arguably tastes flatter than most other carbohydrate crops. Its processing and cooking is also more laborious than most. But there is nothing intrinsically special about maize to prevent thinking of alternatives, old or new, that are better suited for the changed conditions.

Whatever the competitive advantages maize in Africa once had over other grains and root starches, they are now increasingly being cancelled out by the rapidly declining conditions for its reliable cultivation, adding to the risk of famine every time the rains are less or later than expected.

Coping strategies that ignore this only help to increase the chances that shortfalls of rain will result in more famines in Africa. Coping strategies that currently exclusively focus on how to 'persuade' maize to do better in worsening conditions urgently need to be accompanied by a mindset change. Concurrent efforts must be made to find alternatives to heavily soil nutrient-demanding, heavily rain water-dependent maize as Africa's main source of dietary carbohydrate.           

It would therefore seem logical for many researchers, nutritionists, farmers, policy makers and so on to be busily cracking their heads to figure out how to urgently reduce Africa's maize dependence, so that 'drought' does not have to so often automatically result in famine. But no one is interested in thinking about this because of how deeply, (now) negatively entrenched the idea of 'maize' and 'food' as being one and the same thing has been allowed to become.

The argument that many Africans have come to 'like' maize seems almost petty and irresponsible, if it means we must witness a famine every time there are fewer than expected drops of rain.

'Drought' has been put in quotation marks here because it is not a neutral, value-less word. 'Drought' assumes that the climate owes a particular area the same range and timing of rainfall that has obtained there for the last several years/decades/generations/centuries. Who said so? Who made this promise?

One of the paradigm shifts that is needed, but that is very slow in coming, is acceptance of the reality that for many areas, what is judgmentally thought of as 'drought' is the new normal. We can either continue to knock our heads against the wall asking why this is so and hope that next season will go back to the old normal, a kind of blind faith for which there is no longer good reason. Or we accept that low-precipitation rain seasons are the new normal, and start changing practices accordingly, including the kind of carbohydrates that we 'like.'

Just as the 'liking' of maize was introduced/taught/learned behavior, it can, and now needs to be replaced by more climatically-appropriate carbohydrate-eating behavior! Of course this magnitude of changing thinking is a huge task, but it can't be any more daunting than watching a famine wipe out masses of people every decade or so. 
     
It is easy to see why the groups who should be leading this paradigm shift are reluctant to do so. Because of its economic and therefore political importance in Africa, maize has mutated into a type of hot potato. Even in normal times, maize is big business for exporters/importers, researchers, governments, donors and so forth.

In times of famine like now, when millions risk starvation partly because the carbohydrate on which they have become nutritionally dependent cannot be grown well because of 'drought,' there are others who prosper from the shortage and the chaos. Middle men whose markup appreciates; NGOs and 'charities' who mainly mean well and mostly do good, but whose basic business model means misery for others means more income for them; cynical governments who expect praise for doing their basic job of feeding the vulnerable, and so on and so forth. All these local and foreign members of Africa's vast and intricate 'Maize Mafia' have something or other to gain from the continent's unhealthy, increasingly famine-contributing maize habit.  

Maybe this is too depressing and alarmist. Let's take a break and accentuate Africa's maize-positives, by pointing to the last few years of bumper harvests in two countries, Malawi and Zambia. Rain-fed cultivation by mostly small-scale farmers, with enough surpluses for export, helped by inputs-subsidies by forward thinking governments. Don't these successes disprove all the anti-maize arguments just made? Don't these two examples show that maize still has a bright future in Africa?

Not at all necessarily. One or two slightly dry cropping seasons in these countries, let alone real 'droughts' like that in east Africa now, and they would likely experience famine every bit as severe. Actually these last several years have had rains that are almost unusually good for Malawi and Zambia, so nobody should pretend to be shocked if in the next few years 'droughts' have their turn. The combination of deeper maize dependence and greater neglect of alternatives; less attention to boosting intrinsic soil fertility because of greater fertilizer availability and so on may make the famine come quicker than might have otherwise been the case in a drought.  

So no, the temporary successes of Malawi and Zambia at maize cultivation are not necessarily negations of the 'maize-dependence-is-dangerous-for-Africa' rule. These 'bumper harvests' do nothing to change this reality that is becoming more obvious: 'food security' that is primarily based on rain-fed cultivation of an increasingly Africa-unsuitable crop like maize is no security at all.

It is bad enough to see the present famine in east Africa unfold. It is much worse to be able to predict that at least partly because Africa is under the psychological and economic grip of its maize dependence, sooner or later, in the same region or elsewhere, we will yet again see periods of low rainfall needlessly resulting in famine.

It's time for bold people to step up to the plate of starting the difficult job of helping Africa kick or at least significantly reduce its dangerous, outdated maize habit.

African Agriculture

Malawi farmers grow pulses for Indian market

Farmers in Malawi are shifting from their traditional crops to grow pulses to meet the increasing demand in India.

A Malawi businessman John Jimu Banda, who was in India to attend the CII-EXIM Bank India-Africa Business Conclave March 27-29, said that the Malawian government is encouraging farmers to grow more pulses to meet India's demand for the crop.

Apart from attending the meet, Banda intended to buy some equipment, but he is going back to his country with an export order for the supply of pigeon pea or tuar dal.

"There is a big demand for pigeon pea in India. I have got orders for supplying 1,000 tonnes of pigeon pea from two parties," he said. Malawi is already exporting about 50,000 tonnes of pulses to India, but there is "good scope for increasing the quantity", according to Banda.

"The government is putting emphasis on growing beans for the Indian market. It is telling farmers that there is a good market for the pulses abroad."

The Malawi government has sought assistance from India for producing new varieties, and for research and training in growing early-maturing and high-yielding varieties of pulses.

The main crop in Malawi is maize, tea and tobacco, but farmers also grew beans of various kinds. Tobacco, tea and sugarcane provided 70 percent of Malawi's export earnings till the international prices of tobacco crashed.

Since then the government has been encouraging growers to shift to other crops such as pulses, paprika, macadamia nuts and fruits.

Farmers in Malawi grow soya, pigeon pea, chick pea or garbanzo or chole, green gram (moong), white cow peas (lobiya) and red beans or kidney beans (rajma). The red beans are of two varieties - a small deep-red bean and a larger bean with a red-speckled skin. "The difference is only in the colour, the taste of both is the same," Banda said.

Banda was looking to buy extractor machinery to make soya milk from soya bean. "I have signed a contract with an engineering company for a machine with the capacity to make 500 litres of soya milk in a day," he said.

Banda started his company, J.J. Enterprise, in 2004 with agricultural exports, mainly exporting maize to Zimbabwe and South Africa.

Nyasa Times

More farmers turn to cultivation of moringa in Benin

by Toni Bacala

In the fields of Benin, a green revolution has placed local farmers at the forefront of the battle against malnutrition. With the establishment of Association Béninoise du Moringa (ABM), Beninese farmers have expanded the production and promotion of moringa to nourish the ailing West African nation.

Widely acclaimed as a "miracle tree," moringa is fast-growing and possesses multiple benefits, from nutritional leaves, flowers, and seeds, to drought-resistant roots and bark. Moringa leaves are usually consumed fresh in green salads, or sautéd. In health programs, leaves are dried and ground into powder, then sprinkled on any dish for instant nutritional boost.

It has been traditionally used in South and Central Asia, India, and the Middle East as livestock feed, biofuel, medicine, water purifying agent, and soil fertilizer, among many other uses.

In the mid-1990s, the US Peace Corps initiated moringa promotion in the country in keeping with nutritional campaigns all over West Africa.

Despite such assistance, however, Benin has long lagged behind in the region, as compared to Niger, which has been producing moringa as a cash crop, and Senegal, which integrated moringa into HIV/AIDS treatment in the late 1990s.

"The value of this plant cannot be downplayed as regards its possibility to address some of the Millennium Development Goals as well as to influence the ongoing debates on climate change," said Muriel Glasgow, founder of Moringa Partners, an interactive outfit of moringa growers, scientists, non-government organizations and other enthusiasts from all over the world.

Benin has had its hands full battling against malnutrition. According to UNICEF, one out of every three Beninese children below the age of five has experienced malnutrition. The country's health crisis is aggravated by recent floods that have displaced thousands of residents, devastated farms, and destroyed access to clean, potable water. Foreign agencies have stepped in with food assistance and nutrition programs, but for the people of Benin, a longer-term solution is needed.

In 2008, a pilot project in the town of Goumori drew closer attention to moringa. The first batch of moringa powder produced was sold out in one week, encouraging farmers to share their knowledge so others could grow the plant.

As communities increasingly grasped the nutritional and economic benefits of moringa, volunteers and farmers saw the need for a mechanism to manage the future of moringa in Benin. Thus, ABM was born.

"We envisioned an organization that would promote moringa on a national scale and facilitate a market for moringa thereby taking the responsibility of promoting moringa and creating a market off the farmers themselves," former US Peace Corps volunteer Christoph Herby told MediaGlobal.

Last August, the vision came to fruition at the widely participated launch of ABM.

Moringa industry in Benin has flourished notably as ABM facilitates more farmers growing moringa alongside other crops as an additional source of income, and as an affordable supplement for malnutrition.

Through ABM, efforts of farmers, which were usually confined in their own fields and villages, are stretched out to markets and other moringa producers across the country. "Ultimately the goal is to create nationwide demand for moringa powder, satisfied by a network of well-supervised moringa plantations," said Herby.

ABM sets the production standard to strategically incorporate moringa into nutrition programs. One of its key activities is conducting workshops with farmers, health workers, and students. Since its launch, there has been a spirited demand for orientation on moringa cultivation and processing, informed ABM technical assistant Patrick Starr.

Benin's health agenda has inspired the expansion of moringa networks such as Moringa Partners, which reaches out to growers from Cameroon, Ethiopia, India, Costa Rica, and the Philippines.

"On a larger scale, [the] Peace Corps is increasing its focus on food security," said Herby. "And moringa is being considered a primary component in Peace Corps' food security planning for the West Africa sub-region."

"The world is still learning about moringa," said Glasgow, optimistic that more moringa benefits will be developed as a worldwide demand is set in motion.

While ABM acknowledges that it will take years to see tangible effects of the program, the empowerment of Beninese farmers has resulted in the cultivation of hope, health, and abundance beyond quantifiable terms.

http://allafrica.com

Erratic rainfall driving switch from maize to potatoes in Kenya

by Geoffrey Kamadi

Increasing unpredictable rainfall is driving a surge in potato planting in Kenya as growers of maize, the national staple crop, look to diversify toward more drought-tolerant crops.

Maize has been Kenya’s primary food crop for decades and is a major source of revenue for between 3.5 million and 4 million farmers, but unpredictable rainfall in the country is lowering yields and has led to rising food insecurity.

That is a particular problem because two-thirds of farmers in Kenya try to grow maize on land largely unsuitable for its cultivation, said Stanley Guantai of the Kenya Maize Development Programme, a U.S. AID funded effort to boost rural income.

Faced with worsening droughts, farmers are being encouraged to plant crops such as sorghum and millet instead of maize, Guantai said, but many are also opting to grow potatoes – a crop that is fast-maturing compared to maize and can be used to bridge the gap during shortages of the staple grain.

It remains unclear precisely how many farmers are abandoning maize. However, according to Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, the number of potato farmers has grown from 500,000 in 2003 to 800,000 today.

Production nearly quadrupled between 1992 and 2008, to 2.1 million tonnes, and potato cultivation now employs 2.5 million Kenyans, said Wilson Songa, Kenya’s agriculture secretary. Kenya’s population is 40 million.

Gradually, at least some families are coming around to the idea that maize may have to give way to potatoes on their dinner plates.

Margaret Vugutsa, a seamstress living on the outskirts of Nairobi, says that her family from western Kenya grew up eating ugali, a traditional and widely popular Kenyan porridge made of maize meal. But Vugutsa, a 50-year-old mother of four, says ugali has become expensive, with a 2 kg packet of maize flour – enough to provide a scarce two meals for her family - now selling for 85 Kenyan shillings (just over $1).

“On the other hand, potatoes of the same price can provide up to three, sometimes four meals for my family,” she said.

A meal of ugali also needs to be complemented by vegetables or meat, while potatoes can be eaten on their own, she said.

The increasing unpredictability of weather patterns in Kenya, believed linked to climate change, has dealt a severe blow to the country’s economy, particularly as droughts have become longer and more frequent over the past two decades.

Drought-related losses amounted to 240 billion Kenyan shillings ($3 billion) between 2000 and 2009, according to Nsanya Ndanshau, regional manager of the Eastern Africa Grain Council. The council promotes the exchange of information on matters affecting the grain industry in the East African region.

Maize yield per acre in particular has been dropping, said Abraham Mbugi, an East African sales executive with Monsanto in Kenya.

“Whereas 10 to 15 years ago an acre of land in the fertile Kenya highlands could produce an average of 20 bags of maize, weighing 90 kg each, the same land now produces 15 bags on average,” Mbugi said.

The highlands account for up to 60 percent of Kenya’s maize production. According to Mbugi, yields in the less fertile regions, which account for the balance of production, have declined from an average of six bags per acre to four bags over the same period.

As annual per capital maize consumption falls in Kenya – it is now below the minimum 98 kg per year recommended by the government - consumption of potatoes is slowly rising. Over the past 15 years, consumption of potatoes has increased from 25 kg to about 30 kg annually per capita, said Jackson Kabira, head of the National Potato Research Programme at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute’s (KARI) Tigoni Centre.

“As Kenya’s main staple food, maize production has fallen short of demand due to frequent droughts and low productivity,” Kabira said. “This sub-optimal productivity has consigned about half of Kenya’s population to a status of food insecurity, which could easily be met by the humble potato.”

Kabira contends that increasingly unpredictable weather patterns brought on by climate change now makes potato farming more competitive than maize farming.

“The potato production cycle is much shorter compared to that of maize,” he said. Potatoes can also yield crops up to seven times greater by weight than maize.

Interest in growing potatoes in Kenya has now surged to the point that KARI is struggling to keep up with demand for seed potatoes and new varieties. The Ministry of Agriculture says that more than 60,000 tonnes of seed potatoes are now required annually. Short of land on which to produce them, KARI has been forced to delay the release of three potato varieties originally unveiled in May 2010.

KARI officials now fear they may fail to reach their target of supplying 20 to 40 tonnes of basic potato seed to farmers in the next 24 months.

To speed production, KARI is looking into using aeroponic technology, which makes it possible to grow potato tubers in water mist instead of soil. KARI’s centre at Tigoni has demonstrated that aeroponics can produce more than 50 mini-tubers per plant, compared with between 5 and 10 mini-tubers for plants grown in soil.

Commercial production of seed potatoes through aeroponics, already underway in China and Korea, is only now being introduced in Kenya by the Ministry of Agriculture in conjunction with donor agencies, including the Peru-based International Potato Centre.

Kenyan potato farmers, such as 60-year-old Patrick Njogu Gitau, say they are impatient to get their hands on the new seed.

Gitau cultivated Asian cabbages for 13 years because of the high price they fetched, but in 2006 a decline in once-regular rainfall led him to switch to potato farming, which proved even more profitable on his two-acre plot in Kiambu County.

Today Gitau is chairman of the Kenya National Potato Farmers’ Association, which formed in 2006 and now has 10,000 members. To meet demand and boost profits, he said he has rented additional land to put into potato production.

Junghae Wainina, a Kenyan businessman, similarly has profited from the potato boom by operating a potato cooling plant in Nyandaruea, a few kilometres from Nairobi. The 500 million Ksh ($7.4 million) plant, which opened in 2005, provides long-term storage for up to 6,000 tonnes of potatoes and is the only one of its kind in East Africa.

Alternet

African 'culture of maize' works against climate adaptation

by Jennifer Dube

An entrenched “culture of maize” is hampering efforts to help Africa cope with climate change, experts said at the sidelines of early December climate talks in Mexico.

Speaking at an Agriculture Day on the sidelines of the United Nations climate change conference, agriculture experts said despite a consensus that changing weather patterns are contributing to deteriorating maize yields, diversification into other grains like sorghum and millet remains low.

“Our problem in Africa is that we attach too much value to maize as food,” said Blessing Chinsinga, science and research lecturer with Chancellor College University of Malawi. “While politicians equate the availability of maize to food security, a family without maize in the farming communities is associated with vulnerability.

“If you have millet or sorghum, many will still think you are desperate because you do not have maize.”

Maize is the most widely grown staple crop in drought-prone Africa, with more than 300 million people estimated to depend on it as their main staple. But the continent’s vulnerability to drought makes farming risky for millions of small-scale farmers who rely on rainfall to water their crops. The maize crop is usually severely affected and experts say climate change will only worsen the problem.

“But we have always had an option”, said Mclay Kanyangarara, climate change advisor for the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. “Maize is an introduced crop and the small grains have always been our traditional indigenous crops, which are better suited to our climate. Maize is also more capital intensive, requiring a lot of fertilizer and pesticides and we need to realise that we cannot force it to grow.”

Kanyangarara said many people were also reluctant to plant small crops despite scientific evidence that they are healthier than maize, the reason why Western countries that grow maize still use small grains like wheat for breakfast cereals and children’s food.

Chinsinga said a study carried out in Malawi,Tanzania and Kenya showed that some farmers are discouraged by the size of their farms or plots.

“With good conditions … a farmer requires a bigger piece of land to produce half of what they can get from maize,” he said. “That is a discouraging factor. There also are no lucrative markets for alternative crops. There is no value addition to these alternative crops unlike in other countries where they are used in making breakfast cereals, beer and chicken feed.”

Chinsinga said some people also do not like the physiology of both sorghum and millet which makes them more labour intensive compared to maize. He said such things as having to scare away birds when the crop starts having grain are also obstacles to their adoption.

A small-scale farmer from Malawi, Dyborn Chibonga, said the experts’ observations may be partially true for Malawi although there are some people in drier regions who do not have maize as a staple food.

As a farmer, Chibonga does not see himself dropping maize even in light of climate change.

“Maize is still a staple for this generation, but it will not be for the next generation as they are getting used to eating rice, pasta and bread among other food items,” he said. “But the vagaries of climate change are dictating that we diversify.

“In the case of the National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi, we encourage members to diversify with cassava and sweet potatoes which are more drought tolerant.

“Diversification is not failing but is on its way. Farmers have realised that the weather patterns have become more unpredictable from year to year, even within the season, and diversification is one way they are still learning to use for adaptation.”

Chinsinga said the collapse of public crop breeding systems due to lack of investment over the years in many countries was contributing to the problem. Profit-driven foreign seed companies, he said, had taken over the local seed market and will continue selling maize to make money even aware of the fact that it is getting increasingly difficult for many to grow it.

“The situation now requires strong government will and determination to revive the national crop breeding systems,” he said. “Together with other stakeholders, the governments should identify suitable alternative crops that would also be attractive to farmers.”

Drought tolerance has been recognised as one of the most important targets of crop improvement programs in Africa. To this end, some organisations from the continent are currently developing drought-tolerant maize using conventional breeding and scientific methods under a private-public partnership called Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA).


http://www.climatemediapartnership.org/reporting/stories/experts-african-maize-culture-militates-against-climate-adaptation/

Changing Kenyan diet boosts food security

Kenyans have changed their eating habits and consume more food other than the usual maize staple, driving up food security in the country, a senior Ministry of Agriculture official said on December 23.

Key staple foods such as maize and wheat have previously been hit hard by high prices following shortages after bad weather conditions or diseases.

"We have seen people panic when there is low maize supply...people hoard, prices go up... when in fact there are other foods that can supplement," said Wilson Songa, agriculture secretary in the ministry.

He said Kenyans have shifted to Irish potatoes, which is the second most consumed food, and indigenous vegetables such as amaranth, bananas and fish.

Statistics from the ministry showed sluggish maize and wheat consumption in the last 11 months, which increased by 1 percent and 4 percent respectively compared with 2009.

Rice consumption increased 14 percent in the same period. Potato production was at 1.6 million 100 kg bags, against a target of 2.2 million 100 kg bags.

Songa attributed the low Irish potato production to poor attention to the crop, which is overshadowed by maize.

He told Reuters formation of the National Potato Council two weeks ago, which will oversee drafting of the first potato policy in the country, will more than double production and increase profitability by next year.

Agriculture was one of the key economic drivers highlighted in the third quarter results on Tuesday, that saw east Africa's biggest economy grow by 6.1 percent.

Agribusiness and value addition are said to have also added impetus to the changing eating habits.

"Private sector has enhanced value addition...you will see amaranth floor in the supermarkets, and this has eased pressure on maize," said Songa.

A study conducted by Tegemeo Institute, the research arm of Egerton University, as reported by Business Daily, showed dominance of staples in the food basket will decline as household incomes rise, while foods such as vegetables, fruits, milk, meat, fish and eggs will receive an increasing share of the household budget.

The Standard newspaper quoted Agriculture Permanent Secretary Romano Kiome as saying that government and farmers are holding about 19 million bags of maize, projecting a 45 percent increase when harvesting of the crop ends.

Rice production for the last 11 months stood at 601,743 90 kg bags, while beans accounted for 3.8 million 90 kg bags against a target of 5.6 million 90 kg bags on the back drop of heavy rains. Wheat production reduced by 300,000 bags to 4.2 million 90 kg bags to fungal disease.

Reuters

Farming of dhal increasingly replacing cotton in Tanzanian region

Orton Kiishweko


Farmers in Tanzania's Shinyanga region want to abandon cotton farming after noticing that a kilo of dhal, (famously known in Kiswahili as 'choroko') has gone up from 900/- per kilo to 2000/- this year.

They bravely followed suit by doubling its acreage and now change seems to be sweeping across the cotton- turned-choroko farmers in Shinyanga's three districts of Bariadi, Maswa and Kishapu.


It is seemingly bringing some glimmer of light -- at least for now. It is change when more farmers promise to be gradually moving away from the cotton crop on grounds that it's paying them less.

The crop has not yet got international attention, yet is gradually but surely gaining attention of some diligent business people in the region.

"This change is both satisfying and disappointing,"says the Acting General Manager of SHIRECU, Joseph Mihangwa, hinging his opinion on the fact that cotton contributes 13 per cent of the country's traditional exports.

"It represents some hope and warning that these are tough times for our 'white gold' but some hope for farmers who may opt out for now for what is paying them more," he adds. According to him, there once was a time when a bigger part of the six Shinyanga districts would be punctuated by forests of white balls of cotton farms ready for harvest by June. But that was not the case this season.


This was a beautiful sight as much as it promised big returns for the farmers. "But things have changed so much so that we expect less than two trucks of cotton per village in a day, down from 10 trucks that used to be fetched from a village per day," says Dotto Majwala, a farmer at Mwaruhushu village in Mwamapalala, Bariadi district.

Travelling south east of Shinyanga town, aiming for Bariadi, it takes two hours and a half to enter this district known for its high cotton production.

A number of short buildings are coming up in this Bariadi centre, as if to welcome a 'stranger' coming here for the first time, 'these are the fruits of cotton in its hey days.' But you know you have reached a cotton farming area, some 10km into the rural side on seeing a series of small and large farms with white flowered plant heads that beautify the farm sides.

Yet for some, and a growing number of farmers, the beauty of the large white balls of ripe cotton plants is gradually becoming a thing of the past. Theirs is a cotton dream waning as they say, "we did not grow much this season," thus explaining the less yields they would get and have already started going down as the season opened on June 28 this year.


But among this group's plantations are also bright greenery showers expanding gardens of another 'new love' for farmers in the area, known as Choroko. "This is our new catch, with which, perhaps we can send poverty good bye," says Emmanuel Bohna, a 43 year old peasant farmer at Mwaruhushu village.

In one corner of his small compound, Bohna has, in his measure, a giant choroko plot now aged hardly 2 years.

"This one could become the mother of all crops here. I harvested over 2 tonnes of it from the same area last year," he brags, as he points across with an air of importance.

"For now, a breath of fresh air seems to be blowing our way, if this crop's price remains constant," he adds. Bohna is one of the small scale farmers of Choroko in the area. He started growing the crop at a one and a half acre plot in 2006.

In 2007, that is when his enterprise grew bigger, an encouragement his other peers took up by sparing at least half an acre to grow it, to start with. "I first grafted some seedlings and offered them to fellow farmers.

At the end of each season, some farmer would initially buy the seeds from them at between 500/- to 700/- a kilo and subsequently sell to bigger buyers," he said, adding: "Chorokos are becoming money makers and we refer to them as the new catch. Everything from it brings in money and the remainder can be used for home consumption."


In the early years, he says that when farmers were using old methods of handling their crop, the produce was not very satisfying. But today, he notes, a farmer can plant up to 1000 seeds in an acre of land and harvest between more kilogrammes per plant.

In Dar es Salaam, a kilogramme of Choroko cost as much as 2200/- in markets of Kisutu and Kariakoo in June and July. And just last year, when he harvested a tonne in only one season, he knew he was eventually on the take-off.

The fortunes, he observes, were used to scale up the construction of his modern house, a humbly imposing structure on the side of his choroko plantation whose size is expected to double next year.

At the side of the house, is three head of cattle he acquired from the 1.5m/- proceeds from season one of 2009. With a pat on his back, he chants, "With next season's proceeds, I expect to see my three children through school."

But there have been challenges. Despite having a ready market and offering a good price currently, he does not have the land to grow.

"I have to rent from people every season with 30,000/- per acre, and another challenge he has found in his farming practice and failed to overcome is, being financially able at the start of the growing season.

"At the time the growing season is starting, we hardly have anything in our savings as a family, so failure to buy seeds and pesticides is highly usually likely. This is very disorganising and disappointing. "he adds. And the plant seems to have given his small family of 6 a new lease of life.

With his legendary farming spirit, Bohna is determined to improve his farm fields as best as he can. It just goes to show that despite the difficulties farmers face in bettering their lives, that human spirit, somehow, always finds a way. "There is hope after all," adds Bohna.


allafrica.com

Kenya: Eyes on avocado as coffee cash crop fortunes tumble

by Otsieno Namwaya

In the highly rated agricultural region of Central Kenya, coffee and tea have for long been the main cash crops and high income earners. But the upheavals that have afflicted these crops, and thus the bottom line for most farmers, have led many to begin looking for alternative income sources.


Avocados, like other fruits such as oranges and lemons, have for years been grown by small-scale farmers, in Central Kenya and other parts of the country, but not at the current rate. A survey by this writer showed that should the increased growing of the fruit be sustained in the long term, avocado could just be the crop to watch. An avocado processing industry is not only attracting new investors, but more farmers around the country are beginning to spare space for the crop.


Ms Esther Wangari, the general manager of Olivado Kenya (EPZ) Ltd, an avocado processing company from New Zealand that four years ago established its East African base in Nairobi, says avocado is beginning to take root as a cash crop in Central Province, and it is this market that the firm is keen on developing.


“The market prices for avocado have been going up for the last five years, but the early 1990s were the best — the yield was better and the price per kilogramme was good,” says Mr James Muturi, a farmer from Kawendo in Kandara District.


But avocado is a long term investment, as most farmers reaping from the crop planted it in the early 1970s and 1980s. Despite its most recent promise, avocado farming in Central Kenya has gone through ups and downs over the years, with rogue agents taking advantage of desperate farmers, collecting the produce, selling it and disappearing without paying.


Others harvested the crop with the promise of taking it to the processors, only to abandon it in the farms to rot. Mr John Mbogo of Kavingasi Village in Embu District says other processors would offer painfully low prices for the fruits. Having been in avocado farming since 1968, Mr Mbogo has seen it all.


“At that time there were organised groups and companies that would buy avocados from farmers. These groups would then sell the fruits either directly in the local market or export them,” he said. Even though the authorities are yet to take any direct measures to promote the crop in the country, many farmers in Central Kenya are optimistic that, if handled well, avocado could well fill the void left by the dwindling fortunes of coffee.


Those interviewed have either uprooted their coffee trees or are planning to replace them with avocado. Most farmers in the area have small pieces of land — mostly between two acres and 10 acres — and are happy with avocado because, if well spaced, it allows them to grow other food crops in between.


Mrs Alice Maina from Kandara also grows maize and beans, just like Mr Muturi, who also keeps livestock. The entry of Olivado, which they say pays them better for their produce, has sparked interest from farmers, and many are now looking to avocado as the future cash crop.


The optimism might not be in vain, as agricultural experts share the view that the crop has great promise. “Avocado is the crop for the future and could replace coffee in Central Kenya, although this could take some time,” says Mr Kori Njuguna, a fruit research co-ordinator at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (Kari).


Avocado farming was, in fact, introduced in Central Province by Kari several decades back and the officers are happy that it is finally gaining ground. “There are two varieties of avocado grown in Kenya — Fuerte and Hass. The Hass variety has recently gained importance due to its high returns. We are currently testing to see which of the varieties has higher resistance to common diseases in the area,” Mr Njuguna says.


While Olivado’s worry would have been the sustainability of supply of the fruit for its processing needs given that most farmers are small scale, the good news for it is that one of Kenya’s big players in agriculture, Kakuzi, has set aside 1,000 acres to grow avocado.


Kakuzi might however prefer exporting the crop or even establishing its own processing plant, thus competing with Olivado for farmers’ produce. Mr Njuguna says that the plan is to expand avocado farming to other areas. “It is already taking root in Western Kenya.”

Daily Nation

Real estate taking up Kenya coffee farmland

by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura

Land under coffee cultivation near Kenya's capital is being converted into more profitable crops or real estate, the head of a Kenyan coffee sector association has said.

Coffee production in east Africa's biggest economy has fallen from a record 130,000 tonnes in the 1987/88 season to 54,000 tonnes from the just concluded crop.

Coffee sector authorities are alarmed that farms on the outskirts of the capital Nairobi are giving way to apartment blocks or high-end gated communities, and they want the government to create a policy to protect the coffee fields.

But the tide will not be turned unless beans again become the "black gold" they once were, said Etienne Delbar, chairman of the Kenyan chapter of the 10-nation Eastern African Fine Coffees Association.

"The movement of agricultural land being converted into real estate is seen worldwide. It is in South East Asian countries and Central America countries that it is most visible," he said. "We also see that some coffee land now used for other crops -- bluegrass, cut flowers, macadamia nuts -- why? Profitability. It is very expensive to grow coffee in Kenya."

Electricity, water and labour costs have gone through the roof, said Delbar, who was formerly head of Kenya's biggest coffee producer, Socfinaf. It is more difficult to get labourers and water for irrigation is scarce nearer the city, he added.

One of the big low-lying estates pulled up over 1,000 hectares of coffee bushes in 2004 and planted pineapple and avocado instead, which proved to be more profitable, he said.

Global warming means low-lying farms see higher temperatures that quicken cherry maturing. The early crop is traditionally less appreciated than the late crop and fetches less.

To keep farmers growing coffee, the government has to fully liberalise the sector, Delbar said. Small farmers, for example, receive their payments more than a year after they deliver cherries to factories. Liberalising the sector to allow farm gate sales could hasten the process, Delbar said. It is illegal at the moment to do farm gate sales, but the trade does happen, Delbar said.

"It is estimated that 5,000 tonnes of coffee is smuggled into Uganda where trading in cherries is liberalised," he said. "Today it is illegal but a lot of transactions happen."

"Productivity for smallholders is very low, 250 kgs green coffee per hectare. In Vietnam it is 2,200 kgs per hectare," he said, adding that doubling output to 500 kgs would keep small scale farmers cultivating coffee.

Presently, 60 percent of Kenyan coffee is grown by smallholders and the rest on estates, Delbar said, compared with 100 percent in Rwanda and Uganda and 80 percent in Ethiopia.

Out of the 170,000 hectares under coffee in Kenya, estates represent around only 12 percent but produce 40 percent of the harvest.

To counter the loss of farm land near the capital, the government should encourage investors to start operations in western Kenya in areas such as Kitale and Mt. Elgon, he said, which have the potential to produce good coffee.

The fact that the big trading houses were investing in milling machinery shows that their long-term view on coffee growing in Kenya is positive, Delbar said.

Reuters

Benin diversifies agriculture away from dependence on cotton

Known for its palm oil and cotton production, Benin's agriculture sector wants to become known for high-quality rice and to quit importing rice by 2011, according to the government.

People in Benin's agriculture sector must aim high, said the Agriculture Ministry's Antonin Alavo, coordinator of agriculture diversification. "We have to nurture grand ambitions [knowing] we will achieve less. It took us 30 years to get where we did with cotton. We will not develop a new sector quickly."

Working with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the government is trying to double current rice output by 2011 by producing 2,200 tonnes (mt) of higher-yield rice seeds annually. The country imported nearly 240,000mt of rice in 2004 – the latest data available – and produced 350,000mt in 2007.

Alavo said the government wants to help farmers move beyond production. "We are taking into account the entire chain: processing, commercialization and adding value to the product."

FAO is launching a US$500,000 rice initiative to produce and distribute New Rice for Africa (NERICA) seeds. A cross between African and Asian rice seeds, they have a shorter growing cycle and have helped boost production in the region.

FAO estimates Benin is using 8 percent of available land for rice cultivation and could save $55 million and cover 70 percent of domestic demand if it invested more in rice production. "If we are producing two tonnes per hectare instead of eight [with high-yield seeds], the farmer loses," said FAO's representative, Jean Prosper Koyo.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a net importer of rice, with Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire among the world's top 10 rice importers. West African rice imports reached six million tonnes in 2001 and are likely to rise to 11 million by 2010, according to FAO.

"For so long Benin has had a one-pronged agriculture policy," said the Agriculture Ministry's Alavo. "First it was palm oil, then cotton. For us it was important to find an alternative solution," he said, referring to the international fall in cotton prices and resulting slump in national cotton production.

Benin is one of Africa's largest cotton producers and exporters, along with Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali.

IRIN

Guinea Bissau farmers urged to diversify beyond rice, cashew

Aid agencies are encouraging communities to diversify their agricultural production in Guinea-Bissau, where 90 percent of farmers grow rice or cashews to survive, making them vulnerable to erratic rainfall and price fluctuations.

“The rains sometimes come very early, sometimes stop very early, so there’s a problem with rice,” said the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) programme manager in Guinea-Bissau Rui Fonseca. “And price fluctuations make cashews uncertain…We are telling producers you can continue with rice and cashews but you can plant other things too.”

Farmers can attract more consistent prices with other crops, said Fonseca. Tomatoes and carrots currently sell at US$2.30 per kilogram in the capital Bissau.

FAO and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) run programmes aimed to help farmers cope with shocks and boost their cash-crop income while promoting nutritional diversity.

Average income in Guinea-Bissau is $1.30 per day, according to the UN.

FAO, prompted by the food price crisis, has been encouraging farmers in Oio and Bafata regions to grow millet, taro, peanuts and green beans since mid-2008.

Raw cashews which currently sell for 28 US cents per kilogram, down from 60 cents earlier in the season, do not yield enough income for farmers to live on, said Safietou Sanya, president of an ICRC-supported market gardeners association in Three Kilometres village, 3km from the northern city of San Domingos in Cacheu region.

ICRC works with village associations in the region, planting gardens, building wells, training people in gardening techniques and distributing seeds, said ICRC’s Guinea-Bissau programme manager Alfa Diallo. In Three Kilometres rows of lemon, avocado and mango saplings are lined up for sale at $3.40 a plant.

“This year I was able to save enough money through [the garden] to send my children to school,” said association president Sanya. She and fellow members planted and sold onions, peppers, cabbage, okra and tomatoes this year, she told IRIN.

Die-hard habits

But despite the potential benefits of moving beyond cashews, aid groups encounter reluctance among some farmers to change the crops they grow – or eat, ICRC’s economic security adviser Ilda Pina told IRIN. “All they have known is rice and cashews….To change people’s habits is very difficult; we have to move very slowly.”

Some ethnic groups in Guinea-Bissau do not eat tomatoes or green beans, she said. “It is not in their tradition.”

The government estimates that 20 to 30 percent of inhabitants in the north are moderately malnourished, though many northern communities supplement their staples with nutrient-rich wild foods such as palm oil, baobab fruit, cashew fruit and tamarind, according to Pina.

Aid agencies encourage farmers to eat the vegetables they cannot sell.

Even with diversification a number of challenges remain for farmers in the region. Three Kilometres is near San Domingos, but approximately half of the vegetables produced by farmers in villages further north go to waste because members cannot reach nearby markets, said Sanya. The route connecting villages north of San Domingos is a dirt track that is impassable for much of the six-month rainy season.

IRIN

Kenyan farmers cash in on Artemisinin production

East African farmers are key suppliers of the active ingredient in the most effective malaria drug available.Although the Artemisia annua plant (sweet wormwood) is not native to the region, East Africa “is now the third most important growing region in the world”, said Nigel Bremner, commercial manager of Botanical Extracts EPZ Limited (BEEPZ), after China and Vietnam, where it is indigenous.


Speaking from his office in Athi River, site of Kenya’s export promotion zone (EPZ), Bremner said cultivation of the herb started more than 12 years ago. Growing in earnest started in 2002 with three to four farmers contracted by BEEPZ to plant about 40ha. Artemisia annua cultivation now supports at least 4,000 smallholder farmers growing more than 4,000ha of the cash crop in 2009, from 2,000-3,000ha last year.


Artemisinin is a key ingredient in combination drug therapies recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the treatment of uncomplicated multi-drug-resistant strains of falciparum malaria.


Elizabeth Juma, head of Kenya’s Division of Malaria Control in the Ministry of Health, said that between 16,000 and 20,000 children die annually from malaria, despite a scaling-up of prevention efforts. She estimates that between one and two million people sought treatment monthly.“Artemisinin-based combination therapies are currently the first line of therapy,” she said.The Artemisinin Enterprise, which aims to improve production to reduce the price of Artemisinin-based drugs (ACTs), said “market instability has led to extremely volatile Artemisinin prices that, in recent years, have ranged from US$180 to $1,700/kg”.


The Kenyan government buys 17 million doses of ACTs annually at 1.5 billion shillings ($24 million) for free use at government facilities. At private pharmacies, the cost per dose ranges from 450 to 650 shillings ($5.60 to $8.20).


Bremner said that with grants from the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and later Novartis, the Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company, large commercial cultivation of Artemisia annua began in 2004 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.In 2006, BEEPZ paid out US$1.7 million to farmers.BEEPZ completed an Artemisinin extraction plant in Athi River in 2007 and supplied Novartis with enough Artemisinin for more than 22 million Artemisinin-based combination drug therapies, according to its website.


Novartis is just one of the pharmaceutical companies producing ACTs. Others include Sanofi-Aventis, Saokim Pharma and Lachifarma. BEEPZ pays between $550-$600/tonne of dry leaf to smallholder farmers. One hectare can bring in up to 2 tonnes of dry leaves and is usually cultivated without the use of much fertiliser or pest problems.


“I am very happy with this crop,” said Daniel Mathiaka a farmer in Nakuru in Kenya’s Rift Valley. Mathiaka used to grow wheat and maize but for five years now has scaled up his Artemisia annua cultivation. He said the income is double what he earns from maize or wheat and there is always a ready market for his harvest. Last year alone, he harvested 13 tonnes.“This is a very easy plant to grow. After planting it does not need much work,” said another farmer. The only problem was the length of time it took to be paid. “Sometimes we wait up to one year,” he said. According to Bremner, delays ensue because farmers are paid half upon delivery of the harvest and the rest in due course; moreover, “this is not a highly profitable business.”


Bremner said that although the quality of the cultivated crop from East Africa was much better than from China and Vietnam, BEEPZ was still in the process of improving its extraction expertise. The company is in technical cooperation discussions with Chinese firms. In December 2008, the UN General Assembly adopted the New Draft Resolution on the Decade to Roll Back Malaria, urging “the financing and scaling-up of Artemisinin production and procurement, as appropriate, to meet the increased need”.In last year’s World Malaria Report, WHO reported that an estimated 247 million malaria cases killed almost 881,000 people in 2006. By June 2008 all except four countries and territories worldwide had adopted ACT as the first-line treatment for falciparum malaria.

IRIN

Kenyan farmers try growing beetroot

Farmers strike gold in beetroot

by Kepher Otieno

Farmers in Western Kenya are giving up traditional cereal growing to venture into beetroot farming, an undertaking said to be paying off handsomely.

Until recently, many farmers did not know the economic and medicinal value of beetroot. Beetroot is a rare perennial plant with leafy stems growing 1-2 metres tall. Of its numerous cultivated varieties, the most well known is the red- root garden beet. Others include the leaf vegetables chard, spinach beet and sugar beet, which is important in table sugar production.

White and red beetroot are planted in the region with farmers preferring the latter. Nyanza Provincial Director of Agriculture Joash Owiro says the region has the right conditions for beetroot farming. Though the crop is not common as staple foods such as maize, beans, sorghum, and cassava, Owiro says the venture is worth every effort. He says the plant is easy to manage and it only requires patience and commitment to reap the benefits.

A recently visited farmers was harvesting his fifth crop this year. The plant takes 60 days to mature, a manager at the Western Kenya Seed Company official says. Joseph Metto, in charge of agricultural products, says an acre can produce up to 60,000 pulp tubers.

"One needs three kilogrammes of seeds each costing Sh3, 400," he says. The seeds are available in most Kenya seed Company stores countrywide.A farmer may spend up to Sh20, 000 for planting, fertiliser, weeding, and ploughing costs, Metto says."One needs about 400 grams of seed for an acre. It may seem expensive but the returns are good," says the Kenya Seed official.

Health experts say beetroot can help reduce blood pressure. Fresh beetroot can also be eaten raw."It can add a refreshing touch to a salad and make a good breakfast flavour," Metto says.

Farmers Albert Sumba says this is one of the plants unique characteristics that inspired him to grow it. "When I learnt of the benefits I decided to spare portion of my farm to give it a try. And today I have no regrets," he says.

Some farmers cook the leaves, which can be steamed or cooked in boiling water.

The Standard