To end Africa’s perennial food scarcity, we must empower smallholder farmers

Smallholder farmers are the backbone of Africa’s agriculture and feed millions of mouths with the fruits of their labour.

Producing over 80 per cent of food for the population and contributing immensely to various governments’ economies, these farmers need to be given knowledge and information so that they can get on with the business of feeding Africa.

In Egypt, the theory that smallholders can be the solution to food insecurity has been turned into reality. With adequate information about their soils, the seeds, the inputs, markets and finances, smallholder farmers in that country have registered much success.

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Last week, I met two farmers in Machakos County. In the course of my trip, I witnessed repeatedly the difference that knowledge and information can make on a farmer’s productivity.

I met Vincent Nzive Kiio, a 25-year-old smallholder farmer, who quit employment three years ago to farm his own land.

A resident of Makaveti Village in Kimutwa location, Mr Kiio has had only one good harvest, which was in his first year.

Last season, he harvested just three bags of maize from his 10-hectare farm; half of what he harvested in 2012.

In the middle of the farm is Mr Kiio’s house, a small hut made of mud and thatch. The rest is shrubs and a few pigeon pea trees.

Mr Kiio’s farm portrays no hope for the young man’s efforts. Despite planting maize and applying fertiliser; the crops germinated only to wilt when the rains failed.

“Our problem here is water. The rains failed this season during the planting season and that’s why my maize dried up,” laments Kiio.

Just across the road from Mr Kiio’s farm is Anthony Kieti’s farm; one that tells a completely different story. Retired from the military, Mr Kieti is full of smiles when we visit him at his farm.

His three-hectare farm has maize that is in good health: maize that has cobs already, a mere 45 days after planting, providing an early glimpse of a potential harvest.

DISCONNECTED FROM KNOWLEDGE

Despite sharing the same agro-ecological system as Mr Kiio, Mr Kieti credits his success to improved seeds — the power of knowledge. He says that what he heard from Dryland Seed persuaded him to try it.

“When our group, Mwania Farmers, was visited by extension workers and agronomists from Dryland, they told us that they have a maize variety that is drought-tolerant and high yielding,” Mr Kieti says.

He adds that he is very happy with the improved variety, that despite the failed rains, he has something to count on, come harvest time.

The two cases represent typical examples of lives of smallholder farmers throughout Kenya and Africa; who remain disconnected from knowledge and information about agriculture and hence face challenges they could have easily overcome.

What needs to be done is to ensure that smallholder farmers are empowered with knowledge so that they can make sound business decisions.

The government is already in panic mode wondering what will happen when the grains in the reserves are over and are busy searching for lasting solutions.

However, this search for a solution to food insecurity will continue unless information flows from the various boardrooms, laboratories, and databases to the farmers who need it as an important ingredient to their trade.

Smallholder farmers should be moved from subsistence farming to the market place if food security is to be achieved in Kenya.

As Kofi Annan once said, “knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family”.

Let us embrace our farmers and empower them to do what they do best, and in that way help to solve food insecurity in Kenya and beyond.

Mr Adero is a media, digital and web specialist working with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. ([email protected]; [email protected])