Kenya’s Flying Vegetables: Small farmers and the ‘food miles’ debate

In this highly personal and keenly argued commentary, James Gikunju Muuru makes the first detailed response by an African smallholder to the controversy over ‘food miles’. His account describes the serial feats of coordination, discipline, productivity and manual labour which make Kenyan horticulture competitive in global markets. For anyone who has ever asked how some of the poorest populations can reap the benefits of world trade, the example of James’s four-acre plot in the Mwea district of Central Province is a compelling reply.