Oduor Ong'wen
Uhuru Kenyatta is committed to what has become known as “The Big Four” agenda as he serves his second and final term as the President. These comprise food security, universal healthcare, affordable housing and manufacturing. Today I wish to focus on the Food Security agenda and declare that it is misplaced and is destined to fail. From the onset I aver that the problem facing Kenya and other Third World countries is not food insecurity. It is lack of Food Sovereignty. As such I would have been happy if President Kenyatta and the framers of the “Big Four” had focused on Food Sovereignty instead.
I have studied government policy documents of Food Security and found very many worrying propositions. Two fundamental assumptions are particularly worrying. These are that the adoption of neoliberal economic policies would lead to greater food security; and the country’s food security can be rather adequately be indicated by aggregate food availability per capita.
In pursuit of neoliberal economic policies our policy makers have vested faith in the Washington Consensusthat gives primacy to “market forces,” “free trade” and “privatization” in development strategies. These policies are assumed to be necessary and sufficient conditions for assuring sufficient food production, adequate access to food by the poor and for good governance. Experience since the wave of liberalization nad privation in the mid 1980s tell a different story. Indeed our current situation where the stores of the National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) are full while maize farmers are stranded with their harvests of the last season is telling. These policies make it easier to move maize from “Mexico” to Mombasa port in a record four days while we cannot move the produce from North Rift to Makueni County even in six months.
There is little in the history of the now rich industrialised countries, or of the relatively successful developing ones, to suggest that this is the course that these nations followed. Indeed a historical review of the development strategies and especially of the food and agricultural policies followed them is instructive. Western European countries, Japan and the United States have highly subsidized agricultural sectors, as well as an array of institutions and policies designed to protect poor food producers and consumers.
With regard to over-reliance on quantitative indicators of food security, obtaining comparable quantitative estimates of trends in under-nutrition as an indicator of the absence of reliable access to adequate food and equity in its distribution among different social groups is much more difficult. Secondly, quantitative indicators of the autonomy of food systems and their long-term ecological and social sustainability are equally partial due to the qualitative nature of these concepts. Neglecting these crucial dimensions of the issues – as the authors of Kenya’s Food Security policy have – is not only misleading but also extremely dangerous.
The policy places inordinate faith in commercial farmers. Many of these own large farms or ranches. Obviously, a landowner could set a large tract of land aside as a natural area, and in so doing, be a good steward of a "very large farm." But such a farm or ranch would not generate much income or produce much of economic benefit to society. If land is to generate income and create a good place to live, the land must not only be "used" but "used well." And thus, most farms and ranches must be "smaller" than they are today. The emphasis on the "commercial" purpose of farming has encouraged – essentially forced – most farms to become so large that farmers can no longer "use the land well." Each farmer can only know and love so much land.
The relationship between farm size and farm "lifestyle" is similar to that of size and stewardship. With respect to the physical environment; open space, fresh air, scenic landscapes, etc.; residence farms may be any size, and up to a point, larger may seem better. Beyond some point, however, farms or ranches get larger at the expense of their neighbours and their communities, regardless of whether the motive for expansion is commercial or residential. And, the quality of the farmer or rancher's relationships with his or her "neighbours" ultimately affects the quality of "the place they live."
If our rural communities are to remain healthy, desirable places to live, they must preserve the health and productivity of people, their physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing; the people, that is, must be treated well. A further requirement is that if people are to treat each other well, they must know each other well, must be motivated to treat each other well, must have time to treat each other well, and must be able to afford to treat each other well. If our rural communities are to remain good places to live, we must have communities of people who love each other. And, we cannot have communities of people who love each other if some feel that they must drive others away so they can own more land.
This brings us to another purpose for farming, farming for sustainability. Sustainability requires that farmers be motivated by the purposes of economic viability (commercial), ecological integrity (stewardship), and social responsibility (lifestyle). If farmers or ranchers focus on any one of the three, without giving conscious purposeful consideration of the other two, they inevitably threaten the sustainability of their farming operations. Farms or ranches that focus on economic viability, i.e., commercial farms, eventually will become too large to "use the land well" and inevitably degrade their relationships with their neighbours. Similarly, farms that focus only on individual lifestyle, excluding concern for neighbours, productivity, or the natural environment may threaten sustainability. And, farms or ranches that focus solely on stewardship do nothing to support healthy community relationships or to provide for the food and fiber or employment needs of people. In all three cases, by focusing on a single purpose, they threaten sustainability. Largeness is not the cause of the lack of sustainability of a farm, but instead, is a symptom of a narrow focus on a single purpose of farming – most typically, on commercial farming.
This is in no way a glorification of tiny farms and ranches. Of course, farms and ranches can also be too small to be sustainable – they can't generate enough income, can’t take care of the land, nor provide a good place to live. But, farmers who rely on “alternative” farming methods – reduce input costs, market in the niches, build relationships, etc. – can generate more net income with fewer acres of land and less money invested. Still, farms that are "too small" do relatively little harm to the economy, the environment, or to the community, and thus, to the sustainability of agriculture. Why do small farmers farm for sustainability? They are farming for quality of life. In other words, they are farming to perpetuate quality livelihoods for the living and yet unborn.
There are five intrinsic characteristics of farming for sustainability that are either absent or not sufficiently canvassed in the policy. First is the development and promotion of a food system that offers security for its participants by ensuring the capacity to produce, store, import or otherwise acquire sufficient food to meet the needs of its members at all times.
Second is a food system that provides maximum autonomy and self-determination, thus reducing vulnerability to market fluctuations and other social and political pressures.
Third is a reliable food system that is not amenable to seasonal, cyclical and other variation.
Fourth, a secure food system should be equitable. This means that as a minimum it should guarantee dependable access to adequate food for all individuals and groups both now and in future.
Finally, it should be socially and environmentally sustainable so that the ecological systems on which all societies and food production depend are protected and enhanced over time.
Our national Food Security policy has tried to compress everything into food availability, stability and access. It is my position that de-emphasising the questions of autonomy, equity and long-term ecological sustainability makes it a tool for profiteers lurking in the shadows to unfairly benefit from the troubles of small producers and consumers. But I am not surprised. Uhuru Kenyatta has never slept hungry due to lack of food. If he ever slept without eating, it was perhaps because he didn’t have the appetite or over-indulged, as we are sometimes wont to.
November 17, 2018
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