Food Shortage-Kenya - In the 1970s, Vietnam could barely feed itself and relied on food aid to sustain its population. Today, that country is the second-largest exporter of rice in the world, a feat achieved largely on the back of the efforts of farmers with holdings of about two acres. This information is one of the favourite examples International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) president Kanayo Nwanze likes to offer to illustrate the challenges and promise of agricultural development in Africa. Dr Nwanze was in Nairobi last week to attend the United Nations chief executives board meeting chaired by secretary general Ban Ki Moon. He used the occasion to visit several projects sponsored by Ifad, an agency created in a partnership between the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 1978 to work with poor rural people to boost production.

The programme in Kenya has been successful and has mobilised women, who previously made their living logging on Mt Kenya, into a cooperative movement that produces 150,000 seedlings a year and boosting water supply through a treatment plant in Lukenya in Machakos district.

The obstacles

In an interview, Dr Nwanze, a veteran agriculturalist with a scholarly mien, outlined his views on why the continent has a food shortage.

He said low allocations to agriculture by governments and development agencies was one reason.

Although African governments signed the Maputo Declaration requiring them to allocate at least 10 per cent of their budgets to agriculture, most are below that target.

Kenya allocates about 4.5 per cent of its budget to agriculture, which employs nearly 80 per cent of its citizens.

That is a slight increase but it is well below the average of 12.5 per cent dedicated to agriculture in the early years of independence.

Dr Nwanze argues that a shift in perceptions of agriculture is also essential.

"When you go to the villages you find that farming has mainly been left to older people. That raises the question, who will provide the food that will feed the nation in 2040 or 2050?

This is a pivotal challenge. There must be a change in mindsets that makes the rural space attractive for the youth. Agriculture should not be viewed as an occupation for poor people. It is a profession that can pay well," he said.

The Ifad head says an approach that improves social amenities in rural areas, including building better schools and hospitals and investing in agricultural enterprises, would have the dual advantage of boosting food output and stemming rural-urban migration, one of the biggest challenges on the continent.

Dr Nwanze says African governments must deal with familiar problems holding back agricultural development, including the absence of linkages between farmers and markets, the absence of price incentives for farmers through such schemes as guaranteed minimum prices for produce and poor rural infrastructure.

Low budgetary allocations for agriculture have also undermined extension services, forcing researchers to work directly with farmers, he says.

Dr Nwanze visited projects in which direct Ifad financing to rural communities is seen to have made a difference to lives of farmers like Jane Jaguara, a 32-year-old woman in Kiambu who benefited from a goat-breeding scheme through an initial allocation of two goats.

She now has about 20 goats at her homestead and has diversified into rearing chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys.

The Wangu environmental conservation group in Irangi forest in Embu district that was previously made up of firewood collectors has since set up a business selling indigenous tree seedlings, according to Ifad, and has expanded its portfolio to include fish ponds whose water is recycled to serve as fertiliser in their farms.

Rural communities

Those small-scale examples would need to be replicated on a national scale to make a difference to Kenya's food supply.

The example of countries like Vietnam, China and Singapore, where government subsidies for farm inputs and ambitious investments in rural infrastructure transformed the agricultural sectors, indicate that African agriculture has a long way to go to end the continent's perpetual food shortage.

Murithi Mutiga

Daily Nation/11/04/2011