Whenever we hear of a lack of food in Africa, we hear about droughts and such. What folks don’t tell us is there is still plenty of places to grow things, but those places have been dedicated to providing luxury food items to far flung regions of the world.
Take Kenya for example …
Immediate, medium and long-term priority interventions, including controlling food prices, providing food aid and creating employment, are required to stop more Kenyans going hungry, an inter-agency assessment of the 2008/2009 short rains recommends.
The interventions in livestock, agriculture, fisheries, water, education, health and nutrition sectors would address Kenya’s food insecurity, which is becoming “increasingly entrenched”, states the report compiled by the Kenya Food Security Steering Group, with several Kenyan ministries, UN agencies and NGOs.
(KENYA: Severe warning sounded on food security, UN news reporting agency IRIN, 03/2/09)
The proffered solutions are quite standard big corporation/government action to save the tiny child, woman and man
For agriculture, the report recommends providing drought-tolerant seeds and farm inputs to farmers in areas affected by months of post-election violence in early 2008.
For the water sector, the assessment recommends water-trucking; fuel subsidies, borehole rehabilitation; desilting water sources; rain harvesting; rehabilitation of shallow wells and the rehabilitation of irrigation canals.
In the food sector, the report says at least 123,000 metric tonnes of food commodities will be required from April to September and recommends the prioritising of food and association costs for 2.5 million drought-affected people; 850,000 school children and 150,000 internally displaced persons; and a supplementary feeding programme.
(ibid)
Now take a look at what Kenya is exporting (numbers from the UN)
Commodity | Quantity | Value (000 US$) | Unit value (US$) | ||||
1 | Tea | Mt | 284309 | 463726 | 1631 | ||
2 | Coffee, Green | Mt | 48643 | 87771 | 1804 | ||
3 | Beans, Green | Mt | 32578 | 85238 | 2616 | ||
4 | Vegetables Fresh nes | Mt | 20618 | 59089 | 2866 | ||
5 | Pineapples, Canned | Mt | 59095 | 40831 | 691 | ||
6 | Cigarettes | Mt | 3027 | * | 26685 | 8816 | |
7 | Sugar Confectionery | Mt | 23980 | 25363 | 1058 | ||
8 | Oil of Palm | Mt | 32791 | 24856 | 758 | ||
9 | Vegetables Prepared nes | Mt | 16556 | 21152 | 1278 | ||
10 | Nuts nes | Mt | 6226 | 18610 | 2989 | ||
11 | Sisal | Mt | 20895 | 14149 | 677 | ||
12 | Pyrethrum Extract | Mt | 133 | 11918 | 89609 | ||
13 | Hides Dry-Salted Cattle | Mt | 17400 | 11119 | 639 | ||
14 | Tobacco Leaves | Mt | 2035 | 10535 | 5177 | ||
15 | Fruit Tropical Fresh nes | Mt | 16966 | 9621 | 567 | ||
16 | Chocolate Products nes | Mt | 1814 | 6710 | 3699 | ||
17 | Fat Preparations nes | Mt | 7148 | 6544 | 916 | ||
18 | Extract Tea,Mate, Prep. | Mt | 1300 | 6336 | 4874 | ||
19 | Margarine + Shortening | Mt | 6454 | 6319 | 979 | ||
20 | Peas, Green | Mt | 1658 | 5993 | 3615 |
(UN Food and Agricultural Organization)
Kenya has a huge agricultural base, but much of this base has been turned over to interests that aren’t serving the immediate and long term needs of Kenya itself. Imagine if Kenya grew an extra 123,000 metric tons of food for a hungry population instead of growing for export.
But then they couldn’t afford the latest genetically modified and tightly controlled seeds from Monsanto and others, could they? (For more see GM Crops Irrelevant for Africa, printed at the Institute of Science in Society.)