ELDORET, KENYA The fields are scorched by the sun. The wind bends the cornstalks and rustles the dried leaves. It looks like the corn has dried up.
– That’s exactly how it should be. Maize is ready for harvesting when the leaves are crisply dry and the corn ear has turned to hang downwards, says a smiling corn farmer Jackson Choge.
There is reason to smile. In March–May, Kenya received the first decent rains in three years. At the same time, the Kenyan government distributed advance vouchers to farmers to buy fertilizers at discounted prices.
Now Kenya is harvesting a crop that is like a corn cob in Jackson Choge’s hand, a record size.
– A record-breaking individual. And there are a lot of these in this field, the farmer sighs with satisfaction.
We are in the village of Lalagini in western Kenya, about twenty kilometers from Eldoret, the capital of Uasin Gishu province. The stems of the roads sway with corn ripe for harvesting.
A steady rustle can be heard from the other side of the small village road. There, a front of four men advances, cuts cornstalks with machetes and piles them into home-style buns.
On this side of the road, the ears of corn have already dried for a couple of weeks and it’s time to remove the ears of corn. It is handmade and requires its own technique. Today, Jackson Choge has a dozen permanent and twenty temporary employees.
Choge says that last year, 18 sacks of corn kernels were obtained from this half-hectare field. Now the harvest is getting many times better.
“There is enough corn for export and for feed”
We meet the Minister of Agriculture of Nandi province Bernard Kiplimo Lagatin in the garden of an Eldoretian hotel. A small smile lingers on his lips as well.
– The corn harvest is becoming the best ever. The previous record was 46 million 90-kilogram sacks of corn, now our forecast is more than 60 million sacks, says Lagat.
The minister’s assessment may have a touch of Kenyan optimism and a desire to emphasize the president William Ruton management success in the first crop season. But it seems obvious that Kenya will be able to feed itself for the first time in years.
– Maize is still the staple food of Kenyans. The domestic market needs about 50 million sacks a year, so this year’s crop will also have enough corn for export or as animal feed, Minister Lagat assures.
Ukrainian grain is not needed now
In July, Russia did not agree to extend the Black Sea grain export agreement, which secured the access of ships carrying Ukrainian grain to the Mediterranean. Ukrainian wheat and corn can no longer be supplied to the world market through that, nor to Africa.
Russia and Ukraine blame each other for the failure of the agreement and that the other side causes suffering to hungry people in Africa.
In fact, most of the grain transported under the Black Sea Grain Agreement has ended up to developed or middle-income countries. Only about every tenth grain ship has sailed to African countries, most of them to Egypt.
Through the grain export agreement, approx 400,000 tons of Ukrainian corn and wheat per year. If the forecasts are correct, this year’s corn crop will be able to cover the amount many times over.
– In Kenya, the impact of the war in Ukraine has been felt most in the prices of fertilizers. They have more than tripled. Fertilizers were fortunately available in the spring, and when the government paid subsidies to farmers to buy them, we were able to have a successful harvest, explains Minister of Agriculture Lagat.
Could Africa feed itself?
Africa was last self-sufficient in food production in the 1960s.
Its opportunities to produce food for its growing population and for the world market are in principle excellent: according to statistics from the UN’s agricultural organization FAO, about 60 percent of the world’s unused arable land is located in Africa.
Agricultural yield in African fields is on average only about a third of the yields per hectare in Europe.
In principle, Africa would have excellent opportunities to both expand and enhance food production. So what’s the fuss about?
– About water, answers Bernard Kiplimo Lagat.
The rains in East Africa have always been irregular. Now climate change seems to make the situation even more unstable. Before the spring rainy season, there was a record three-year drought, as a result of which more than 20 million people in the region still suffer from a lack of food.
Lagat, the agriculture minister of Nandi province, sees only one way out of the frequent hunger disasters.
– Africa will be able to feed itself the day we switch to artificial irrigation and no longer depend on the success of the rainy seasons.
In Lagat’s opinion, the development of artificial irrigation techniques should be taken into the hands of Africans.
– We had a mobile payment system here in Kenya years before they became common in the so-called developed world. We can also develop irrigation systems suitable for African conditions, which serve both small farmers and large commercial farms.
The small farmer is forced to sell
Jackson Choge is a large farmer in Kenyan terms, corn and coffee are grown on his farm on about 130 hectares.
However, most of Kenya’s maize crop matures on small farms, only a few hectares in size. For a small producer, a record-breaking harvest is not necessarily a blessing.
– Most small farming families live from hand to mouth and are forced to sell the crop as soon as it ripens. The prices are then at their worst and in the worst case they will not be able to buy new seeds and fertilizers even after a good harvest season, says the provincial director of the Kenya Farmers’ Association KFA Kipkorir Menjo.
The Kenyan government has created a system where small farmers can store their crops in government silos for a small fee. The corn could then be sold after a few months, when the prices have risen.
– But Christmas is coming, the children’s school fees have to be paid. Small farmers cannot afford to wait for prices to rise, Kipkorir Menjo points out.
The eyes of smallholder farmers now turn to the Kenyan government: Will it set a guaranteed price this week to buy maize from farmers? If there is a guaranteed price, will it be enough to cover the production costs? Is the government ready to support the procurement of fertilizers in the coming growing season as well?
Kipkorir Menjo also believes that Africa can produce food for all Africans.
– We have the right climate and fertile soil. If governments can only support small farmers in a reasonable way, we will succeed.
Four tons of corn kernels
A tractor-powered corn mill grinds the grains away from the chaff in the yard. The separated corn kernels are packed in 90 kg sacks according to the Kenyan standard.
This time, the field of just under a hectare produces 46 sacks, a little over four tons of corn grains.
– Three times more than last year, says farmer Jackson Choge with a smile.
Choge has already built an artificial irrigation system for his first coffee bush plantation. But the intention is to convert all the farm’s fields to artificial irrigation.
– Now we can only use the fields for eight months of the year. If we get artificial irrigation systems, we can produce two corn crops a year.
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The animals are dead and the Kenyan nomads are fleeing to the side of the main roads – “I can only give the children corn porridge and tea”