Food For Thought On Food In Kenya

[MOON Ki]

Yap - the last serious geological mapping was done by British

So we just went to sleep? For 50+ years?  That might explain why even today the British can come in and "discover" stuff we've been standing on for years:   http://www.nation.co.ke/business/Explorer-strikes-Sh165bn-worth-of-gold-/996-3830360-x0k3pc/

[MOON Ki]

Uhuru had appealed for international aid  to help mitigate the drought situation that has affected people, livestock and wildlife in several counties mostly in Northern, Coastal and far North Rift regions.

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/03/04/uae-donates-150-tonnes-of-food-for-the-hungry-in-drought-stricken_c1518001


So great was the occasion and so grateful the nation (or at least His Excellency & Friends) that the food had to first go to State House (past all the starving all over the place) to be launched (or however one describes  these events):





This was Uhuru last month ... at about the same time his "urgent" plea went out:




That is how the world sees it: dancing and having fun while begging for food.  Economic powerhouse of Eastern Africa.

[Empedocles]

Uhuru had appealed for international aid  to help mitigate the drought situation that has affected people, livestock and wildlife in several counties mostly in Northern, Coastal and far North Rift regions.

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/03/04/uae-donates-150-tonnes-of-food-for-the-hungry-in-drought-stricken_c1518001


So great was the occasion and so grateful the nation (or at least His Excellency & Friends) that the food had to first go to State House (past all the starving all over the place) to be launched (or however one describes  these events):





This was Uhuru last month ... at about the same time his "urgent" plea went out:




That is how the world sees it: dancing and having fun while begging for food.  Economic powerhouse of Eastern Africa.

The world will probably see that the food was donated by the United Arab Emirates...80% desert.

Ironic, isn't it?

[Georgesoros]

politicize starvation.
disgusting

Uhuru had appealed for international aid  to help mitigate the drought situation that has affected people, livestock and wildlife in several counties mostly in Northern, Coastal and far North Rift regions.

http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/2017/03/04/uae-donates-150-tonnes-of-food-for-the-hungry-in-drought-stricken_c1518001


So great was the occasion and so grateful the nation (or at least His Excellency & Friends) that the food had to first go to State House (past all the starving all over the place) to be launched (or however one describes  these events):





This was Uhuru last month ... at about the same time his "urgent" plea went out:




That is how the world sees it: dancing and having fun while begging for food.  Economic powerhouse of Eastern Africa.

[RV Pundit]

That is embarrassing coming from Uhuru.

[Kim Jong-Un's Pajama Pants]

Yabbut we have a cool President.

[MOON Ki]

Sunday May 14 2017  NOW ?!?

Hunger reaction wanting

Millions of households across the country are struggling to put food ... The government has responded with a number of panic prescriptions. .... This is entirely unacceptable because the government cannot claim to have been caught by surprise.  The warnings about the impending drought were issued clearly and early.

With a conclusion you've read or heard before---numerous times:

This episode must not be repeated. The government needs to put into place common sense measures that will spare the country the agony of man-made disasters such as those the country is experiencing.

The culture of panic reactions even when clear warnings have been sounded in advance should end.

See you for the same near the end of 2018?

[Nefertiti]

The mediocracy that is our state planning will never fix this. You're beating a dead horse instead of suggesting solutions. Just like the private sector has stepped up to solve problems in other areas, it may take a long time but entrepreneurs will finally get to it. There are well established industrial solutions to growing food in the desert - Israel excels at this. M-KOPA is busy installing super-cheap off-grid power in the rural areas. There are companies like SunCulture facing up to the drought problem with irrigation solutions for small scale farmers.

Give it time, keep the state out of it.

[Nefertiti]

http://sunculture.com/

A drip kit is only 90K kes. I am aware they raised some good money from US VCs recently. They are gaining traction.

[MOON Ki]

Give it time, keep the state out of it.

List of countries that have had an agricultural revolution without major state involvement?   

Israel would actually not be the top of my list, but you mention it, and it has indeed done well.  We can learn from the place.  So:

The fact that agricultural production continued to grow despite severe water and land limitations was no accident. It was the result of a unique Israeli phenomenon: the close and ongoing cooperation between researchers, extension workers, farmers and agriculture-related services and industries.

Continuous, application-oriented research and development (R&D) has been carried out in the country since the beginning of the last century. The agricultural sector today is based almost entirely on science-linked technology, with government agencies, academic institutions, industry and cooperative bodies working together to seek solutions and meet new challenges.

The Ministry of Agriculture's research body, the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), accounts for nearly 75 percent of all nationwide agricultural research. As such, it is the primary driving force behind Israel's internationally-acclaimed agricultural achievements. The ARO incorporates seven institutes on its main campus, and four off-campus experimental stations. Numerous ARO developments, particularly in irrigation, arid zone agriculture and unique varieties of fruits, vegetables and ornamentals have been commercialized in Israel and abroad.

Dealing with subjects ranging from plant genetics and blight control to arid zone cultivation, Israel's agricultural R&D has developed science-based technologies, which have dramatically enhanced the quantity and quality of the country's produce. The key to this success lies in the two-way flow of information between researchers and farmers.

An extract from this very interesting article: http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/AboutIsrael/Economy/Pages/Focus%20on%20Israel-%20Israel-s%20Agriculture%20in%20the%2021st.aspx

It's not all manly entrepreneurs feeding the country without the government sticking in its nose; far from it.  And another thing: Israel has been "educating" and "training" Kenyans since at least the late 1960s; I don't know if it has done much good, but I see some renewed excitement (i.e., useless kelele) on that front.   

You're beating a dead horse instead of suggesting solutions.

Mine is not to suggest solutions.   Those are largely obvious, but who cares?   (In all areas, the Kenyan Problem is not that people don't know what the "solutions" are.)   Even at the time I started this thread what needed to be done was obvious, and you will soon start hearing it all over the place: "we must do a, b, and c to ensure this doesn't happen again", etc; a whole bunch of "solutions", all recycled and recycled and recycled. But, of course, it will happen again---within 2.5 years.

All I try to do, in my own small way, is to get Kenyans to wake up.    Wake up and realize that the reason they keep starving is not "the heavens have failed to open up and pour rain".    Wake up and realize that the people they beg food from do not necessarily have better gods who maintain a steady and sufficient supply of rain and ensure that all land is fertile and utilized.   Wake up and realize that there is a connection between their endlessly hopeless state of affairs and electing leaders on the basis of "our man" instead of what they can be expected to do for the country, stuffing public offices with "our people instead of people chosen on merit etc.    My modest target is at least one wide-awake Kenyan per month.  Small small, as one might say.   My lot might wake up another lot that it turn might wake up ... a sort of Awakening Pyramid.

[MOON Ki]

http://sunculture.com/

A drip kit is only 90K kes. I am aware they raised some good money from US VCs recently. They are gaining traction.

Yes, interesting.   The "Our Team" page gives individual photos of the leadership, and they don't exactly look Kenyan.    The negroes are lumped together in a "generic" group photo, I imagine those are the secretary, driver, watchman, and tea lady; whatever their roles are, they are apparently not considered important enough to be specified.

Regardless, to my mind, small teams of wazungus doing things to write about on Facebook---"Looky, looky!.  We are saving the hopeless, clueless Africans!" (1M Likes)---are not be best vehicle for a major transformation.   Kenya has, and has always had, small teams of wazungus, doing all sorts of things in all sorts of areas ... what is needed is Kenyans doing the doing ... so to speak.   

Oh, just on the food, a secondary point: True, Kenya needs to producing more food, but there is more to sustainable food production than just the actual production of food; that is in the "sustainable" from a commercial viewpoint.  E.g., even if your team of two-and-a-half wazungus manage to help smallholders improve their lot, who's going to help the latter against market manipulation by the big, well-connected guys n Kenya?     Small Guy produces potatoes that he must sell for Sh. 100 per kg in order to make a profit; Big Guy imports---legally or illegally, there being no practical difference in Kenya---potatoes that he can sell profitably  for Sh. 80 per kg.   How long will Small Guy stay in the potato business?

Which brings us back to your mention of entrepreneurs getting us to where we need to be: the Kenyans ones are busy at work right now, from their own angle---hustling to make a killing out of the food shortage. When people can make more money from food scams than from the actual production of food, which of the two will they choose?

[Nefertiti]

Getting a transformational government is a tougher bet than private industry. Those wazungu FDIs created M-PESA, are doing M-KOPA, SunCulture, etc, and are better news than the manifestoes and other miracles being flashed around for votes.

MOON Ki you have a point but we can't just write our own obituary. There is hope at the end of the tunnel.

[MOON Ki]

Getting a transformational government is a tougher bet than private industry. Those wazungu FDIs created M-PESA, are doing M-KOPA, SunCulture, etc, and are better news than the manifestoes and other miracles being flashed around for votes.

It's easy to do well when kienyeji offers no competition and seems to lack the necessary imagination, whence the success of M-PESA.    Agriculture is different: everyone is in it; and no imagination is necessary to, say, import cheaply and screw the locals. 

M-KOPA: Their numbers, from inception to now, don't look that great; interesting to see how far they will go, given that the "donors" are dishing out to connect everyone to the grid and everyone is jumping into M-Something micro-financing.       Not too long ago, Bloomberg wrote an article that was supposed to be all positive about this sort of thing.   The unintentionally-ironic title of their article made me stop and think:

"The Solar Company Making a Profit on Poor Africans"
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-mkopa-solar-in-africa/

MOON Ki you have a point but we can't just write our own obituary. There is hope at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, there is hope.   If I were not hopeful, I would not be on my one-at-a-time Awakening Mission.

[Nefertiti]

Of course, there is hope.   If I were not hopeful, I would not be on my one-at-a-time Awakening Mission.

Hehe. You stand for the cynics hence cheerleaders like Pundit lack of patience for you.

[Nefertiti]

It's easy to do well when kienyeji offers no competition and seems to lack the necessary imagination, whence the success of M-PESA.    Agriculture is different: everyone is in it; and no imagination is necessary to, say, import cheaply and screw the locals. 

M-KOPA: Their numbers, from inception to now, don't look that great; interesting to see how far they will go, given that the "donors" are dishing out to connect everyone to the grid and everyone is jumping into M-Something micro-financing.       Not too long ago, Bloomberg wrote an article that was supposed to be all positive about this sort of thing.   The unintentionally-ironic title of their article made me stop and think:

"The Solar Company Making a Profit on Poor Africans"
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-mkopa-solar-in-africa/

Of course there is a high risk of sabotage by a corrupt system. I imagine this is one of the FDI assessments. Since we missed out on the industrial revolution we have to ride on technology now. All these mobile- & digital tools are modeled on disruption... the new solution is so radical enough to wither the storm of culture, infrastructure challenges, low incomes, cartels, etc.

Corruption is just one of the many risks to be overcome when investing in sub Sahara, it is not insurmountable. The more the problems the bigger the opportunities.

I still bet on private enterprise over government on developing Africa.

[hk]

Government to subsidise unga to retail at ksh.90 per 2kg packet.http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/news/State-sets-price-of-maize-flour-at-Sh90-a-packet-in-subsidy-plan/539546-3928914-qfmuwcz/index.html . I am very skeptical about this, I can remember nusu mkate government had initiated something like this. The subsidized unga was mainly for low income areas. What happened was clever folks would buy the subsidized unga repackage it under normal brand and sell at very good profit. Having subsidized unga and normal unga in the same market the government is goading traders to take advantage of the obvious price difference.

[Omollo]

So what is your solution? Do have any idea... anything at all... that doesn't involve the "private sector"?

Government to subsidise unga to retail at ksh.90 per 2kg packet.http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/news/State-sets-price-of-maize-flour-at-Sh90-a-packet-in-subsidy-plan/539546-3928914-qfmuwcz/index.html . I am very skeptical about this, I can remember nusu mkate government had initiated something like this. The subsidized unga was mainly for low income areas. What happened was clever folks would buy the subsidized unga repackage it under normal brand and sell at very good profit. Having subsidized unga and normal unga in the same market the government is goading traders to take advantage of the obvious price difference.

[hk]

So what is your solution? Do have any idea... anything at all... that doesn't involve the "private sector"?

No I don't have a solution that doesn't involve private sector. After all there are no government millers, supermarkets or distributors, so private sector has to be involved.

[Omollo]

So let's have it for interrogation

So what is your solution? Do have any idea... anything at all... that doesn't involve the "private sector"?

No I don't have a solution that doesn't involve private sector. After all there are no government millers, supermarkets or distributors, so private sector has to be involved.

[Omollo]

I have no figures but I believe 70% plus of Kenyans are not dependent on the large scale millers but on small posho mills which only grind the grain they bring in for a small fee.

So your solution will be addressing the 30% or so who are urbanized and buy their unga from supermarkets and are slaves of the "Private Millers" which are obviously not owned by the government. A goof number are Kikuyu owned.

http://www.businesslist.co.ke/companies/millers