Seek options to maize, farmers told

With the rising price of farm inputs and the reluctance by the government to offer higher prices, experts say the time is apt for maize farmers to seek alternative crops.

Non-maize crops are viewed with a degree of suspicion by Kenyans, to the extent that farmers would rather gamble with the chance of good rains rather than plant them.

The Cereal Growers Association chief executive, David Nyameino, says Kenya should look for alternative crops but with a commitment by the government to promote such foods.

“The government should emphasis on demand for other forms of food beside maize such as sweet potatoes, cassava, beans and peas,” Mr Nyameino told the Sunday Nation. “By this we are not taking away the demand for maize but are creating demand for other foods such as sorghum and millet.”

Under the state-controlled National Cereals and Produce Board, farmers are currently getting prices way below production costs due to high fertiliser and fuel prices meaning farmers must change tact.

In the trade liberalisation era, farmers can no longer automatically assume that by providing the harvest they will make a profit from growing maize, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

“Those who farm in areas where marketing costs for maize are high may well find that the return does not justify the costs,” FAO says, in A Guide to Maize Marketing for Extension Officers.

The UN agency says that extension officers have a role to help farmers understand this situation, to help them calculate whether growing maize is still profitable and to help them identify alternative crops which may be more profitable than maize.

Risky approach

“While past pricing policies in some countries encouraged the production of just one crop, maize, this was always a risky approach,” FAO says. “Depending solely on maize is even more risky when maize marketing is liberalised.”

FAO advises farmers to grow more than just maize.

In Swaziland, despite the role of sorghum in the Swazi culture, it took years of inadequate seasonal rain to convince farmers to plant something other than maize. Maize is easier to handle and cook, farmers argued.

This stubborn resistance to planting alternative crops is surprising, as at one time sorghum was the staple food of Swazis, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

“Before, we grew sorghum - we cooked it, and we brewed a traditional beer from sorghum, called ‘umqombotsi’,” a farmer told the agency.

To ease pressure on demand for maize, agricultural experts have called for the differentiation between crops grown for human consumption and those grown to feed animals as is prevalent countries such as the US.