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Professor Ambreena Manji

• High hopes: Sustained political debate across Kenya culminated in the agreement of a new National Land Policy in 2009, and a progressive 2010 constitution – or katiba. The need for land reform had been widely acknowledged in the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Illegal/Irregular Allocation of Public Land, known after its chairman, Paul Ndung’u, and the Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Post-Election Violence, compiled by Judge Philip Waki. The adoption in April 2012 of the Land Registration Act, the Land Act, and National Land Commission Act should have marked the end of a process of activism; instead it heralded a new era of debate over accountability and impunity.
• Curious consensus: The drafting of these three bills provided citizens with little meaningful opportunity to express their views of impending changes. A consortium was established to promote debate on the contents of the draft bills, and provide a detailed commentary on legal issues, including the degree to which they were compatible with 2010 constitution. However, their passage through parliament was characterised by little debate or disagreement among legislators. This passivity amongst MPs was a disappointing outcome after a decade struggle over land policy.
• Rush to the finish: Kenya’s 2010 katiba required parliament to enact new land laws within 18 months of promulgation, which set 27 February 2012 as an artificial deadline. Only on 15 February 2012 did the National Assembly hear the first reading of the bills. The government printer only released drafts in time for consultation on 22 February. Neither the parliamentary committee nor civil society had the benefit of reading these documents before the meeting. On 9 March 2012, the National Assembly voted by two-thirds majority to delay the vote by 60 days.
• Complexities and contradictions: The draft bills failed to enact provisions of the Land and Environment chapter of the 2010 constitution; nor were they faithful to the National Land Policy. Many commentators questioned whether they met the test of constitutionality; others argued that the bills should be withdrawn and time allowed for their revision. As Yash Ghai noted at the time, the bills were “for the most part badly drafted, often copied from laws of other countries, often with internal inconsistencies or inconsistencies with other legislation… It is impossible for most Kenyans (including lawyers, other experts, ministers and parliamentarians) to understand the content of the bills (especially since, unlike the constitution, the drafting style is complex, convoluted, old fashioned). This effectively prevents the participation of the people in law making required by the constitution.”
• Flawed process: The decision to adhere to narrow timeframes led MPs to foreshorten debate, whether by accident or design. Space for deliberation was limited. Ironically, one part of the constitution was used to defeat another containing important principles about popular participation in law making. When the texts re-emerged on 16 April, only brief amendments were visible, rather than fundamental revision or redrafting. Nevertheless, all three bills reached committee stage and were approved.
• Civil society: Although the achievement of the National Land Policy and the Land and Environment of 2010 constitution were thanks to the efforts of civil society, activists were also partly responsible for the failure to translate these principles into new land laws. Kenyan civil society organisations attempted to position themselves as mediators between people and law, rather than wrest control of the debate from bureaucrats, recognise the political nature of the debate, and help realise the promise of popular participation in major policy changes.
• Predatory elites: The distrust of bureaucratic power over land is widespread among Kenyans. Successive presidents, and their land commissioners, have long exercised the allocation of public land in pursuit of political patronage and personal accumulation. New land legislation should have provided an opportunity to redress Kenya’s grossly skewed structure of land management and to curtail predatory land practices by the state. Regrettably, it culminated only in shallow redistribution of land, challenging bureaucratic power rather than the structure of land holding.
• The future: Land reform and constitutional promises have become intertwined in the minds of the Kenyan people. This has raised the stakes, and with it the risk that popular disillusionment with the new land laws becomes equated with the failure of the katiba itself to transform Kenya as promised.

Prof. Yash Ghai CBE FBA

• Ministry of Lands: Not many countries have such a ministry given how many land issues relate also to planning, infrastructure and agriculture; but in Kenya, this is the most coveted government department for those seeking enrichment. The current minister is suspended from office due to corruption allegations. The relationship between the Ministry of Lands and the National Land Commission remains poor.
• Community lands: Communal land rights remain contested, with the division of responsibility between national government and county governments unresolved. Where land ownership is based on traditional understandings of land rights, the whole community should be given a say over its alienation. Communal land rights were constitutionalised to prevent them from being grabbed; yet the national government appears determined to undermine efforts by the counties to reinforce such rights.
• Forest communities: Kenya still has a few forests, part of its environmental heritage. These are viewed as the next big target for land grabbing and illegal logging. Although the constitution assures forest communities that they can maintain their lifestyle, a tension exists between those living in traditional forest homelands and others seeking to preserve forests.
• Confiscation by government: Major infrastructure projects are taking place right across Kenya. Many involve the appropriation of land from local communities. This has not been sufficiently acknowledged by the government or in the media.
• Legacy of the struggle: On 12 September 2015, a moving ceremony was held in Nairobi where the British High Commissioner acknowledged the wrongs done to Mau Mau veterans. Litigation in the English courts was withdrawn in return for a financial settlement with the affected families and a memorial to those who died in the cause of freedom. Many of the 25,000 or more who joined Mau Mau fought for land only to find it confiscated while they were incarcerated. Veterans and their descendants remain landless.
• Kenya’s katiba: Despite a detailed programme for implementation, Kenya’s constitution has yet to deliver on all of its promises. The Commission for the Implementation of the Constitution was established with less authority than we recommended, but after only five years it remains too soon to tell whether it will achieve its objectives. Progress to date has been slow; however, the judiciary has improved despite pressure from the government.

Among the many interesting questions and points raised by a large audience, were those by Professor Catherine Boone (on community land legislation in the context of devolution, and the respective mandates of National Land Commission, the Ministry of Lands, and the Counties ); Sir Edward Clay, former British High Commissioner (on the desire to localise land allocations); Dr Richard Baines, (on the lessons which might be applied from devolution of the land registry in Mozambique); and Dr Pilar Domingo (on the role, capability and credibility of Kenyan courts to adjudicate disputes). Watch the video and listen to the audio to hear more.

Podcast:

Pictures:

The post Whose land is it anyway? The failure of land law reform in Kenya appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

The evening also included a round table discussion, “Does Africa Need Development Journalism?” with Aidan Hartley (author, foreign correspondent and film-maker), Maimouna Jallow (journalist and Senior Program Manager at the African Media Initiative), Michael R Meyer (founding Dean of the Graduate School of Media and Communications at the Aga Khan University) and Caroline Mutoko (presenter of Nairobi’s Kiss 100 FM radio station).

Listen to Edward’s introduction, the roundtable discussion and acceptance speeches:

Winning entries

The first prize of £3,000 was awarded to Nelson Chenga, second prize of £1,000 went to freelance journalist Issaka Adams, third prize of £500 went to Valentine Obara and Asha Jaffar received the Chairman Of The Judges’ Special Award. The winning entries can be read below:

Nelson Chenga is the Senior Features Writer at Zimbabwe’s leading business weekly, The Financial Gazette. He has been a journalist for 24 years, working as a freelancer and for Zimbabwe’s biggest daily paper The Herald before joining The Financial Gazette. During this time he has specialised in developmental issues, in particular looking at the way in which environmental affairs impact on poorer communities.

Nelson’s First Prize Winning Article:

Funding Gone Down the Drain

In 2010 and 2011, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sponsored programmes in many of Zimbabwe’s marginal, drought-prone districts as it sought to assist vulnerable communal farmers improve agricultural production.

Through the Reviving Smallholder Farmers’ Marketing of Agricultural Products (RSF-MAP), which was implemented by the Catholic Relief Services (CRS/ZW) and a local partner, the Community Technology Development Trust (CTDT), USAID hoped, among other things, to address institutional economic factors that normally prevent vulnerable smallholder farmers from participating in lucrative markets where better returns for their crop and livestock sales can be realised.

RSF-MAP, part of USAID’s disaster risk reduction initiative in southern Africa, was born out of the general realisation that countries in the region perpetually face chronic droughts, floods, cyclones, food insecurity, disease outbreaks and complex humanitarian emergencies that often present serious challenges to vulnerable communities.

Using the value chain approach, the RSF-MAP programme hoped to link market-oriented production to targeted value chains such as horticulture, groundnuts and small livestock, to help increase income available to villagers for the procurement of food and other household necessities.

However, three years down the line, part of USAID’s US$1.1 million RSF-MAP grant that targeted approximately 30,000 families in Mudzi District in Mashonaland East province, has literally disappeared.

Three small livestock auction pens established in the district are fast being swallowed by the savannah countryside as inactivity undermines USAID’s small livestock auction pen programme. Thorny acacia shrubbery is thriving as all the established sites go unused and unmaintained.

When I happened upon one of the auction pens at Kapotesa in June 2012, journalistic instinct prompted me to take a picture of the fallen billboard at the project. The sight of the billboard with the background of the neatly constructed auction pens looked newsworthy. But newsdesk gatekeepers back in the capital Harare thought otherwise. I kept the picture anyway.

Two years later, I happened to pass by the same auction pens again and, lo and behold, the pens were now buried by bush. I took some more photos.

According to Mudzi District Council officials, all the auction pens established in the northeastern district bordering Mozambique have become “white elephants” because each time auctions have been organised, buyers have boycotted the sales preferring to engage directly with individual villagers selling livestock at bargain prices.

“There is very little we can do about these white elephants, because it’s difficult to force the buyers to come for the auctions where we hoped they would compete against each other for the benefit of the communities,” said one council official, who adamantly refused to be named for fear of recriminations. The government is very eager to portray its economic revival blueprint, the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation, as succeeding everywhere, despite the backdrop of a country grappling with an unrelenting economic crisis.

When the auction pens were established, it was hoped that Mudzi District Council would charge a 2 per cent auction levy to help it maintain the auction sites. Since not a single cent has been realised from the projects, the auction pens were left to crumble.

Another major obstacle to the project was that auctions were meant to take place on specific dates. Yet villagers face problems requiring money almost every other day, and thus they cannot wait until a set date to sell their livestock to solve a pressing matter.

While USAID and many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) sincerely pump billions of dollars into struggling economies, hoping to make a difference, communities that receive this assistance need to be fully consulted to make the most of such initiatives. The Mudzi small livestock auction pens are a typical example.

The initiative had ‒ and still has ‒ the potential to help secure more stable and potentially higher incomes for the poor and vulnerable communities of Mudzi. But with the communities lacking knowledge on how to utilise the auctions to their collective and individual benefit, sustainable development remains NGO mumbo jumbo.

Although all NGO initiatives in Zimbabwe are sanctioned by the government, there do not appear to be systems in place to help sustain them. After establishment, many programmes crumble soon after being handed over to communities simply because the sense of ownership and continuity is absent. When the Mudzi project was handed over, its operation remained the preserve of the council and the villagers’ traditional way of doing business remained intact. They were never informed how and when their livelihoods would be changed by the programme.

The failure of programmes in remote corners such as Mudzi might be non-events for USAID, an organisation that pumped US$900 million in humanitarian assistance into Zimbabwe between 2002 and 2008, as well as millions of dollars in other developmental programmes. But for poor and vulnerable communities, such failures are a painful reminder of their perpetual dependency on humanitarian assistance, as food insecurity and underdevelopment continue to haunt them day in, day out, simply because their mainstay of agriculture remains unsustainably poor and weak.

Issaka Adams, 25, is a freelance journalist from Ghana who is currently studying at the Ghana Institute of Journalism. He hopes to enter a graduate programme in International Development and then specialise in International Development Journalism. “I want to use my journalistic works to transform and develop my country,” he explains.

Issaka’s Second Prize Winning Article

Emerging issues from Ghana’s oil exploration activities

Ghana discovered its offshore oil and gas Jubilee Field in 2007. By 2010, it had started pumping the first oil – a historic moment. Since then, oil has been produced in commercial quantities, and over the next 20 years it could earn up to US$20 billion in export revenue for the country. It is expected that this will present an opportunity for the growth of the country’s economy, reducing the poverty rate amongst the people living in the coastal towns where the exploration work is carried out.

Four years after entry into the oil business, critical issues have begun emerging from communities living close to where the exploration takes place. The sea provides a major source of employment for people living in the coastal towns. They fish to get their daily bread. But recently, their work has virtually halted as a result of the frequent washing ashore of dead whales.

Between August 2013 and August 2014, the carcasses of 22 whales appeared on the beaches of Ghana. Traditionally, in the coastal towns such an occurrence was seen as a sign of a bumper harvest of fish, and the local people celebrated and made merry. They buried the whale and gave it a befitting funeral, just like a human being. This was the practice in the olden days.

The number of dead whales recently has changed people’s ancient beliefs. They are now worried. Whenever a dead whale is washed ashore, they are out of business. They cannot undertake their daily work routines until the mammal has decomposed.

In Asanta, a small fishing village of about 2,000 inhabitants located in Ellembele District in the Western Region, more than seven dead whales have appeared. The chief fisherman of the village, Joseph Ebambay, explained in an interview that this development was unusual in the past and blamed it on the oil exploration in the area.

“I can say there is a change in the environment, because we are now having oil fields and oil companies running within our deep seas. So, you cannot deny the fact that, as we say, it may be because of the oil find. We may be thinking like that, we may be thinking because of the oil drilling some chemicals fell into the sea and maybe these whales … drink some of the water or whatever it is,” said Mr. Ebambay.

Not only the chief fisherman and his people in the village suspect the oil exploration. At the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Ghana, Professor P. K. Ofori-Danson, a sea mammal expert, said in an interview, “the frequency of the occurrence of death is going higher. What new thing have we put there that made it go high? The sound waves inserted into the ocean floor during the exploration are 100 times the sound of a jet plane taking off. So, if you send strange waves to the sea bed, it interferes with [the whales’] echo-location and prevents them from moving, and they are likely to swim to the shallow area of the sea and eventually be washed ashore. So we suspect the oil drilling.”

The central government representative in the area is worried about the rate at which the dead mammals are being found. District Chief Executive Daniel Eshon said Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is not doing enough to help solve the problem, but declined to comment on whether oil exploration is responsible for the death of the mammals or not.

“It will interest you to know that if it happens, the EPA people will call and say try and solve this problem, because they think that as the assembly is there ‒ the assembly is the local government in this particular area ‒ so you have to oversee everything. So in this case, most of the time, they rely on me to solve these kinds of issues. But for them … [to] do this kind of post mortem and proper analysis to determine the cause of death of the whale, they will not come,” he said.

Before oil exploration began, an environmental impact assessment was done for the government by the companies involved. In the assessment, it was identified that the exploration could cause some potential threats to marine mammals. But the mitigation measures that were outlined to reduce these threats have not been properly reviewed by Ghana’s environmental authorities.

Friends of the Nation, an environmental issues NGO, has kept a close eye on the incidents and said in an interview that people in the area have reason to believe that the oil activities are responsible, since it was predicted that it could happen. But the environmental authorities have denied that the deaths of the mammals could be linked to oil extraction.

‘You must have evidence to say so; there has been speculation as to whether the oil activities might be responsible for this, [that] by generating seismic sounds that could disorientate the whales. But recent studies by the International Union for Conservation of Nature have shown that the evidence does not support it,’ maintains Carl Fiati, the EPA’s deputy director of natural resources, marine and costal environment.

Ghana’s environmental authorities are not making any concerted effort to uncover the mystery behind the deaths of the whales. Meanwhile, the migration period of the whales has just begun this year. From August till March they will be traversing Ghana’s waters, and probably more of them will be washed ashore, which will continue to disturb communities living along the coast.

Valentine Obara, works for Kenya’s Nation Media Group. Mr Obara specialises in reporting on rural developmental issues, in particular agriculture, environment and public health. In 2013 he was runner-up in the National Aids Control Council Red Ribbon Awards for a feature story highlighting concerns over the long-term availability of adequate anti-retroviral drugs in Kenya.

Valentine’s Third Prize Winning Article:

Agroforestry Offers Better Livelihood to Kenyan Community

While tilling his one-acre piece of land at Nyadenda village, Suba sub-county of Homa Bay County, Nelson Onunga recalls his childhood years when such hard work would pay off. “In those days, we used to receive enough rainfall and we would have a bumper harvest for two planting seasons in a year, but nowadays it is hard to plant for two seasons because of the changes in climate,” says Mr Onunga.

In his view, the situation has been deteriorating over the years since population growth pushed some members of the community to seek alternative ways of earning a living. Ultimately, the residents discovered that they could make a fortune from the production and subsequent sale of charcoal, hence the once thick forests in the hills surrounding the region became a casualty.

That was about 30 years ago. Now the community is faced by the ravages of environmental degradation. The lush hills of the region overlooking the clear waters of Lake Victoria, in the far south of former Nyanza Province, were rendered bare and exposed to soil erosion from the wanton felling of trees.

Unlike the majority of the Nilotic lakeside communities that largely depend on fishing for their livelihoods, the Suba are a farming community due to their Bantu origin. Therefore deforestation, which led to destruction of water catchment areas, caused a major setback to their means of living.

In a bid to reverse the damage, a novel initiative was set up in the region in 2008. Green Forest Social Investment Ltd (GFSI) was established to focus on commercial tree farming and processing, in a manner which encourages agroforestry and social entrepreneurship. “Everybody knows it’s important to plant trees, but if you’re poor then you will have other priorities than tree planting,” says Marco Venendaal, general manager of GFSI. “There needs to be a means to convince them to do so by making it a commercial practice.”

GFSI is involved in the production of charcoal, bio-fuel and bio-gas. The community is the main supplier of raw materials. The initiative also manufactures honey, and bee-keeping contributes positively to agroforestry. By the year 2011, more than a million trees had been planted on over 1,000 acres of land in the region, with local outgrowers being financed by the company in terms of farm inputs such as seedlings and bee hives.

Upon maturity, farmers “harvest” their trees, which are sold to the factory, which makes environmentally-friendly charcoal. “We do not cut down the entire tree, but carry out sustainable harvesting so that even as the farmers earn from what they collect, the tree is allowed to continue growing, because reclaiming the environment is one of our main concerns,” says Mr Venendaal.

The charcoal-making process also involves the use of modern technology which prevents carbon emissions during production. Robins Ontita, the factory manager, elaborates on how gases that could otherwise have been released into the atmosphere are trapped in tightly-sealed burning chambers and re-used to produce energy utilised in heating the wood. “Heating is only done once, after which the machine can transfer heat from one vessel to another. Thereafter, no more energy is required and in the process there is no gas emission into the environment,” he explains.

The end product is capable of producing more heat than normal charcoal; hence, less is required for fuel, which translates to a lower quantity of wood fuel required by consumers. “The technology is capable [of producing] 900 tonnes of charcoal per year, whereby three kilograms of wood produce one kilogram of charcoal. On the other hand, it takes about five times that same amount of wood to produce a kilo of charcoal using traditional methods,’ says Mr Ontita.

The honey production factory seeks to make good use of flowering trees such as Acacia xanthophloea, the fever tree. Other tree species grown include Markhamia lutea, wattle tree, croton, silky oak and cassod tree, which take between two and four years to mature.

Statistics from Kenya’s Ministry of Environment, Water and Natural Resources show that about 80 per cent of the population depend on wood fuel for domestic energy needs and for use in informal rural industries, such as brickmaking. This has been cited as the main driver of deforestation and land degradation in a country that is struggling to implement green economy policies and programmes.

According to a 2014 report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme, Kenya seeks to promote the maintenance of forest cover on at least 10 per cent of all agricultural land in a bid to mitigate the effects of climate change and global warming. “The addition of trees to farms offers an opportunity for farmers to increase farm productivity and diversify their incomes, and helps combat soil erosion and nutrient depletion by providing a more balanced agro-ecological profile,” the report states. It is currently estimated that Kenya’s forest cover stands at 6 per cent, against the constitutional target of 10 per cent.

Asha is a 22 year old writer and poet, studying at Moi University. Born and raised in Kibera, Nairobi’s largest informal slum, Asha writes about issues affecting people there. “The world is full of people writing negative stories about Kibera but I am putting up a hard fight,” she says. “I believe that being young is not a problem, the problem is being young and not doing anything.”

Asha’s Special Award Winning Article:

Failed Donor Aid

Ever been made to feel like you are not needed and belittled? That’s what is happening in every slum. In every place that the world is always trying to help. We are so busy helping and forget that at some time we need to stop and look. Are we bringing any change? In Kibera, there are more than 200 NGOs trying to bring change. I appreciate them all, but can they please end that right now! How many years have we had organisations trying to help and they end up not doing what they are supposed to?

There is something going on in the slums; we are not looking, but it happens every day.

Commercialisation. We are being commercialised or rather, in a more familiar term, being “helped”. We are used to meet the dreams of so many ambitious peeps. We are the “slummers” or better yet slum dwellers.

“Kibera is the second-largest slum in Africa/the world.” It depends where you are getting your statistics. This has become a cliché. I know, right? Kibera has been painted the dirtiest, scariest, most poverty-stricken place in the world, but I have a different story.

Kibera is one of the biggest slums in the world? Yeah, yeah, but have you been there? No? Yes? No, right! I thought so. You do not know. So, let me tell you about it. Kibera is filled with the most talented, most innovative, most skilled people in the world. But the world doesn’t want to see that, or rather the organisations feeding from it won’t see it. Why? Because it will not bring money to these poverty-stricken people. Sad stories sell, I hear. So, why not spread all the bad things about Kibera to the world and maybe we can get more donors?

All these organisations spread about Kibera want to help, or bring social change, but let’s look at it. How many years have we had these NGOs? Twenty years? Thirty years? And nothing has changed, right? Come on, look at the statistics. Kibera is getting worse, but we have people bringing in donors to help, sending proposals here and there all in the name of ending poverty. Kibera may be just a place people are using to fill their bank accounts, and a lot of organisations do not know the importance of involving people in their work. How do you end poverty without involving the poor people you are trying to help?

Involve people. That is what we need to do. The only way Kibera can stop being poverty-stricken is when the slum dwellers are allowed to control their own business. Leave the slum dwellers to do what they want with their place. Leave the duty of change to the oppressed.

The world is so busy entering into places and bringing in money, but not looking at the specifics of people living in those places. Ask people what they want and maybe the world will change in an instant. You involve people living in the place you want to change ‒ they know these places, and they know what can work and what cannot work. We need to stop imposing our rules and great ideas on people. It is not fair when people come to your house and tell you how to live your life.

It is easy to sign a proposal and release a large sum of money to help people, but I have lived in Kibera and I know that it is not fair when we have people who make decisions for us. Let us scrap the aid thing and let us do more with society. Involve people; ask them to come up with their own agendas and ideas. Maybe they are not living in poverty, as the world perceives; maybe they are not as dangerous and angry people as so many people may think. I, for one, am a talented woman who wants to see my myself getting involved in changing my society, not sitting and seeing people come to my home and coming up with proposals about how to change the slum I have lived in all my life.

It starts with organisations not imposing their ideas. Let the people feel powerful, not inferior. What do these organisations want to do? They want to help end poverty, but end up involving people who’ve never seen poverty in their lives.

The only way we can bring change is by letting the people do all the work and change their own societies. Change is inevitable, yeah, but change comes from inside, and I believe that the only way we can do that is by letting every person who needs help to help themselves. Change can be achieved that way.

This may sound a little harsh, but NGOs are not helping ‒ they bring more problems than solutions. I have to say that they should leave us alone. They should be replaced by dedicated community leaders. Let people change themselves.

Dear NGOs, you have failed us. Now we want to change our societies.

The post Haller Prize for Development Journalism appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Download the Grain Revolution Policy Voice

Food shortages are the root cause of poverty in Zimbabwe’s Gutu district. Rainfall is generally low and erratic. In most places the soil is sandy and over-cultivated. High population density means that the vast majority of the district’s 40,000 households are restricted to farming on small plots. By the mid-2000s the effect of an economic crisis on the government’s agricultural budget and an over-reliance on growing maize, a crop that requires high rainfall, had drastically undermined food security in Gutu. The perennial fear of food shortages in turn stymied agricultural and economic innovation, ensnaring the population in increasingly precarious subsistence farming.

Following a severe drought in 2005, the Chinyika Communities Development Project was conceived by Dr Chidara Muchineripi as a means to overcome the persistent threat of food shortages – and even famine – in Gutu, his home district. His objective was to persuade farmers dependent on maize production to plant finger millet, a neglected crop that is indigenous to Zimbabwe. Chidara’s rationale is simple: finger millet is drought-resistant and better suited to semi-arid and arid areas than maize. Although its cultivation is more labour-intensive, it requires fewer expensive inputs than maize. It is also highly nutritious and can be stored for up to 25 years.

By 2014 almost every household in Gutu had participated in the project. Farmers with a nucleus of finger millet production each have 3-5 years of strategic food reserves and the collective capacity to produce a surplus of up to 2,000 tons a year. Accumulated reserves of finger millet exceed 20,000 tons. Families in Gutu now have a stable, dependable supply of food. This has been achieved without any external intervention or funding. As Chidara makes clear in this timely and instructive Policy Voice publication, the success of the Chinyika Communities Development Project is grounded in participatory research, community engagement and local ownership. Traditional knowledge and culture have been very much in the vanguard in addressing Gutu’s predicament.

The narrative is about much more than switching from one crop to another. A stable supply of food – and behavioural change – has imbued farmers with the confidence to pursue various income-generating activities. Chidara is adamant that farming is a business. In Gutu, finger millet has been the key to the emergence of a diversified and innovative family farming system. Elsewhere the transformative crop – or animal – might be different.

In the long term, Chidara’s aim is to develop a vibrant cash market for small grains in Zimbabwe and the wider region. While optimistic about the potential, he is candid about the obstacles and delivers clear recommendations regarding the practical and policy measures that would further transform the livelihoods of farmers in Gutu and other rural districts of Zimbabwe.

Grain Revolution is a sequel to Chidara’s Policy Voice “Feeding five thousand: The case for indigenous crops, in Zimbabwe”, published in 2008.

The post Grain Revolution: Finger Millet and Livelihood Transformation in Rural Zimbabwe appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

Chidara felt compelled to launch the CCDP following a visit to his home village of Tavengwa during a severe drought in 2005. Chidara brought his mother a gift of five bags of maize, which prompted other families to ask for food, as their situation was far worse than hers. In response, Chidara set about transporting maize to households in Tavengwa from areas where the harvest had been reasonable. Although this solution would do for the short-term, Chidara was concerned about its sustainability. It was all very well dropping off 50kg of maize but what would the families do two or three months down the line when food supplies ran out? A long-term solution was needed and he was certain that to have any hope of success it would have to come from the people themselves.

As it happened, the indigenous knowledge of Gutu’s older farmers held the key to the district’s residents achieving food security. They remembered a time before recurrent food shortages, when communities kept themselves adequately fed by growing finger millet. This small grain is far better suited to Gutu’s semi-arid climate than maize. It is highly nutritious, providing everything the body needs in terms of vitamins, minerals and fibre. It also has medicinal value and can be used to manage high blood pressure and diabetes. School children are healthier since finger millet was re-introduced to the dirt and teachers say their results have improved. Crucially, this small grain has the advantage of an impressively long shelf life – it can still be consumed after 20-25 years provided it is stored in a closed and dry environment.

The CCDP’s transformative power derives not so much from helping farmers diversify their crops but more from providing a platform for communities to become economically self-sufficient. Through the process of becoming self-reliant for food, communities gain the confidence and ability to pursue income-generating activities, such as fish farming and beekeeping. Its success and sustainability is grounded in behavioural change. Practitioners seeking to realise similarly transformative impact should take away three main lessons from the CCDP:

1. Traditional knowledge has a crucial role to play.
2. Communities must be continually engaged and asked about what should be done rather than told what to do.
3. A long-term view is vital as it takes time for new approaches to become established norms.

Finally, in a country riven with political division, it is notable that the CCDP has not been co-opted by politicians, despite its success. This is in large part thanks to the efforts of one Mrs Mlambo, the CCDP’s dynamic co-ordinator who has ensured that the project is steadfastly non-partisan.

Questions

Q: Anna MacPhail, King’s College, London: “Why did growing finger millet cease to be a norm and maize become the dominant crop in Zimbabwe?”

A:  CM responded that maize was introduced when colonial rule was established in Zimbabwe, as it was viewed as good for the people and a suitable way of feeding workers in mines and factories. The colonialists promoted the growing of maize by both commercial farmers and those living on communal lands. The seed houses took advantage of this prioritisation of maize and conducted research focused on breeding different varieties for maize to suit the different regions of Zimbabwe. Eating habits evolved in line with this strong preference for maize, leading to meals using finger millet being widely seen as inferior and laborious to prepare. In the early days of the CCDP, young people were turned off by finger millet’s dark colour, which they likened to boot polish. It does not help that finger millet can be grainy and unappetising if poorly processed, which underlines the importance of capturing the knowledge of older people who know how to prepare the grain best. Finally, the government’s Grain Marketing Board (GMB) would only buy surplus maize and not finger millet. Therefore, if you wanted to make money by selling to the government, finger millet was a non-starter as a choice of crop.

Q: Sagar A Sumaria, soethical media: “How do you recapture lost indigenous knowledge not only about food but also about holistic medicine? How do you respond to arguments that the efficacy of indigenous herbs and medicines is not scientifically proven?”

CM recognised that promoting complete health through making use of cheap and locally available medicine highlights a significant challenge: how do you recollect, document and use indigenous knowledge? It is not enough for herbs and crops simply to be available, each of their unique uses needs to be understood. Since this knowledge is oral, it runs the risk of being lost when old men and women die.

Responding to the second question, CM said that medical professionals are increasingly aware of the usefulness of traditional medicines and many argue that they can be used concurrently with conventional medicine. It makes sense to supplement conventional medicine with herbs that can be easily grown in your backyard.

Edward Paice, ARI’s Director, added that, in April, Father Anselm Adodo from Pax Herbals will be in London to launch his own publication about his enterprise manufacturing traditional medicine in Nigeria, which supports a large network of local outgrowers and distributes nationally. Pax Herbals is held up by the Nigerian Health Ministry as a model of how to commercialise age-old traditional remedies – and to do so in a scientific manner.

Q: Louise Piper, Haller Foundation: Are you worried that you’ve reached a scale that will cause donors and government ministries to attempt to get involved and pollute the work you’re trying to do?

CM conceded that this was a concern but stressed that fortunately the programme is owned by the people, who are now self-reliant and able to look after things for themselves. Even if donors get involved, the people will likely resist any disruption to what they have seen work in the past. The people are also alert to the fact that politicians always want to associate with success, which explains why Mrs Mlambo does not allow politics at field days.

Audio podcast:  

Film of Chidara’s presentation

 Film of interview with Chidara: 

Photos taken at ‘Grain Revolution’ event:

The post Grain Revolution: Finger millet & livelihood transformation in rural Zimbabwe appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

In this timely study, Martha Byanyima chronicles the history and development of agricultural standards in Africa. Although international standards often are considered a barrier to trade, she argues that they are in fact an opportunity – both within and outside Africa. Martha recognises the progress made by African countries to comply with agricultural standards, but is candid about that the difficulties which lie ahead. Institutional reform, education of smallholders and coordination of supply will test the skills and determination of African countries keen to increase their stake in a burgeoning global trade.

Author – Martha Byanyima

The post Ground Control: Making the grade in agriculture appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

By Mark Ashurst and Stephen Mbithi

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A short walk from the Rwandan parliament, the Vision 2020 Snack Bar is a roadside eatery popular with Kigali’s office workers and taxi drivers. The café takes its name from Rwanda’s national development plan, drafted by the government of President Paul Kagame – a choice which belies more than mere patriotism. Food is critical to Africa’s prospects, and farming is the best hope for impoverished rural economies on which 70% of the continent’s poor depend. With more ambition, commercial agriculture would transform Africa’s balance of trade.

At a time of growing international concern about global food security, the example of Rwanda is instructive. For the first time in recent history, Rwanda produced as much food as it consumed in 2009. This is a formidable achievement – and, at times, controversial. Rwanda is Africa’s most densely populated country. Most smallholders occupy tiny plots of land, passed down and repeatedly sub-divided through the generations. In the land known as mille collines, or a thousand hills, their livelihood is freighted with larger significance. Ethnic categorisation of Hutus and Tutsis was made illegal in the wake of the genocide of 1994, but a vast majority of rural smallholders consider themselves to be Hutu. President Kagame’s administration knows that building food security for the rural population is the key to political stability, the foundation of Rwanda’s much admired recovery.

As in Rwanda, so too for much of Africa: improvements in agriculture are vital to the continent, and to the world. Worldwide, at least a billion people – one person in six – are hungry. By 2050, the global population is forecast to rise by a third. Africa’s population is forecast to double. Meanwhile, average cereal yields in Africa have shown no improvement since the 1960s – in contrast to steep rises in productivity throughout much of Asia. Over the same period, Africa has moved from being a net exporter to importing a quarter of its food. Rapid population growth, poor infrastructure and persistent under-investment have negated the benefits of new technology, improved seed varieties and growing international trade in food. In order to reverse this trend, new policies must unlock the potential for commercial agriculture.

The new fashion in development

Among donors, agriculture is once again the hot topic of international development. A gamut of international agencies – including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan – have emphasised the need to improve productivity among African smallholders. But the policies devised by governments and donors imply a daunting lack of ambition. Worldwide, total production of food exceeds consumption. The know-how exists to keep pace with population growth, and the means to feed the planet are within reach – if only governments, and farmers, can find them.

A constant refrain among policymakers is that smallholders must become self-sufficient. “It is time for Africa to produce its own food and attain self-sufficiency in food production,” says Annan. Self-sufficiency is a reasonable goal, but as the key determinant of policy it is ambiguous – and timid. About two thirds of Africans depend on agriculture for their livelihoods, including a majority of those living below the poverty line. Many smallholders are, like city-dwellers, net purchasers of food. The rhetoric of self-sufficiency exhorts rural populations to grow more staple crops, rather than pressing for hard-headed policies to claim a larger share of the global trade in food.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]Until agriculture is commercially viable, there will always be hunger in Africa[/quote]

While the mantra of self-sufficiency is often misguided, the underlying rationale for helping smallholders is sound. Higher productivity means a better harvest for farmers. Better harvests should mean lower – and less volatile – prices. New technology has made it possible substantially to improve soil fertility and to cultivate drought-resistant strains of staple crops. Improved storage and better management of national reserves can reduce waste – in 2009, more than 40% of Kenya’s grain harvest spoiled in store. For aid officials keen to support measures which will reduce poverty, investing in agriculture can seem a deceptively simple proposition. Good intentions aside, the stakes are far higher than the narrow agenda of poverty reduction.

Agriculture is Africa’s most neglected – and important – potential competitive advantage in the global economy. For as long as Asia is the engine of the world’s manufacturing, and western countries dominate the pharmaceutical industry, Africans will continue to import their pots and pans, medicines and cars. Yet Africa’s potential as a cost-effective producer of food for export remains largely untapped, in spite of available land, improved technology and the low cost of labour. Although commercialisation of agriculture is often controversial, the imperative of building profitable agriculture in Africa has been evaded.

Being competitive

The patterns of global trade in food are changing fast. In recent years even China, long admired for its determined pursuit of self-sufficiency in food, has become a net importer of maize. For better and for worse, globalised commercial agriculture is coming to Africa. The reflex response has often been to bemoan the ‘land grab’ by multinational food groups and investors from Asian and Arab states, when a more practical reaction would be to devise strategies for more African participation in a burgeoning international food trade. External demand brings the prospect of economic growth and improved rural incomes. Agriculture must be Africa’s answer to globalisation – for large industrial farms and smallholders alike.

Whether or not this can be achieved is, above all, a matter of making the right decisions in government and for business. First, policymakers must separate agricultural ambitions and investment – cleanly, and unambiguously – from other measures to reduce poverty among rural populations in Africa. Both are absolutely necessary, but the rhetoric of agricultural self-sufficiency is a recipe for confusion. Food security is not the same as self-sufficiency among smallholders. These are distinct ideas, but routinely conflated. For example, although Dubai is a desert, its wealth ensures a stable supply of imported food. In Africa, food security is contingent on greater economic efficiency, especially in agriculture. Africa needs food security, not self-sufficiency in food.

The lesson is that growing enough food to feed the family is not the best policy for every farmer – as many arguments for self-sufficiency can imply. National food security is a legitimate priority for governments, but not an end in itself. The bigger picture is just that – bigger. Global demand for food is a strategic opportunity to re-balance the iniquities of world trade in Africa’s favour. While policymakers are surely correct to expect that rural populations should benefit from agricultural growth, the pursuit of self-sufficiency is not an effective tool to reduce poverty. Until agriculture is commercially viable, there will always be hunger in Africa.

No African leader needs to be told that the fate of rural livelihoods may determine his or her own. Food shortages are the dominant public concern in many developing countries – even more so since 2008, when soaring prices for staple crops sparked riots in parts of Africa, Asia and South America. The subsequent easing in commodity prices is unlikely to be permanent. Yet while new investment has picked up, the record of spending by African states is mixed. In 2003, African leaders adopted a Comprehensive African Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP). Since then, only one country – Mali – has consistently met the CAADP target of spending 10 per cent of the national budget on agriculture.

A question of scale, and value

Being commercial means being competitive. In agriculture, commercial has become a short hand for ‘big’. Commercial farmers are generally assumed to be ‘largeholders’ – typically, the big estates in Egypt, Kenya, South Africa or Zimbabwe. This is wrong. In purely economic terms, medium-scale farms are the hardest pressed to generate returns on investment: they require mechanised farming, without scope for significant economies of scale. In contrast, smallholders who labour by hand can be competitive – provided they secure access to markets. Tens of thousands of smallholders, for example, can achieve massive economies of scale by coordinating their crops and harvests.

Plot size is a poor indicator of what is commercial or competitive. The proprietors of large-scale commercial farms often enjoy close ties to political elites, which bring a disproportionate share of state benefits such as subsidies, infrastructure or a favourable tax regime. While agri-business has become attractive to investors as a means to generate foreign exchange, smallholders often prove to be more diligent custodians of their land and ecology. In Kenya, smallholders have prospered in non-traditional markets by turning from staples to horticulture – a sector which has quadrupled in value since 1975. A better definition of ‘commercial’ would eschew any notion of size in favour of both being competitive and having access to markets.

Smallholders in particular must chart a difficult course between scale and value. In Rwanda, Vision 2020 includes a plan to agglomerate small plots into large, communally-owned rural ‘clusters’ to support intensive cultivation of staple crops. For others, a better strategy can be to diversify away from dependence on a single staple. In semi-arid areas of Zimbabwe, varieties of finger millet have proved more resistant to drought and better suited to long-term storage than maize. Foreign earnings from Kenyan flowers, fruit and vegetables in 2009 were about a billion US dollars, more than banking, tourism, telecoms or brewing.

The example of Kenya

Rural livelihoods around Mount Kenya have been transformed. While large commercial estates dominate production of roses, two thirds of Kenyan vegetables are grown by smallholders. Farmed by hand, with strict controls on the use of fertiliser and pesticides, smallholders’ green beans and sweet potato are premium crops – and of comparable quality to those cultivated by large-holders. Farmers typically earn six times more from horticulture than they would from growing maize. The extra money pays for school fees, medical care – and, of course, for food. For Kenyan vegetable growers, food security means money in the pocket of the farmer – not food in the granary.

A visitor driving from Nairobi towards Mount Kenya is struck first by the lush green of the landscape, in contrast to the dry red dust of the roads. The climate is favourable, but the ground requires extensive irrigation. A network of man-made canals, dating from the colonial period and extended in the 1980s, is maintained by financial contributions from local farmers who dig connecting ditches to their own plots. Smallholders supply weekly harvests to larger farms and businesses which package their crops for export. About 5% of horticultural output is exported, mostly to Europe, earning about 50% of the industry’s revenues.

Like any industry, the prospects for African horticulture depend on comparative advantage. Kenyan horticulture owes its success to a combination of location and organisation. Flowers, fruit and vegetables are perishable. In Africa, they are grown under the sun and farmed in the old-fashioned way – by hand. Sound infrastructure and regular flights to Kenya enable swift delivery to Europe, often in the holds of passenger aircraft – a fact ignored by European rivals who have campaigned, on dubious grounds, against the ‘carbon footprint’ of air-freighted fruit and vegetables.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]Small farmers may be risk-averse but they are not hostile to innovation.[/quote]

Not all the factors which have enabled the spectacular growth of Kenyan horticulture are replicable, but many are an example to policymakers elsewhere. Smallholders coordinate production within local groups, which in turn are highly integrated with exporters. Approved seeds and other inputs often are supplied by the exporters. A framework of ‘Private Voluntary Standards’ devised by European retailers is carefully followed by growers. Kenyan farmers comply with the strict requirements of the Global Partnership for Good Agriculture Practice (GlobalG.A.P), the internationally approved private standard for agriculture. Kenya is the only African country with a local system of standards – Kenya GAP –accredited by GlobalG.A.P.

In defence of ‘directed’ agriculture

Most smallholders are risk-averse. Many are wary of collective ownership and non-traditional crops. None will be convinced by policy statements. In Rwanda, critics of President Kagame’s reforms caution that at least some aspects of policy are coercive. Local administrators employed by the government in Kigali are tasked with ‘zoning’ and ‘mono-cropping’ and the resettlement of rural populations in new village ‘clusters’. In recent years, Rwanda’s policy has prompted comparisons with Ujamaa, President Julius Nyerere’s policy of villagisation and collective agriculture in Tanzania in the 1970s.

The circumstances of 21st century Rwanda are substantially different from those of Tanzania after independence – a difference which is to some extent disguised by the familiar rhetoric of self-sufficiency. Food security in Rwanda is a substantial achievement by the government, rather than an organised private sector. In contrast, Ujamaa triggered successive food crises and deepening dependence on food aid. A more apposite comparison is East Asia. President Kagame’s variant of state-directed agriculture recalls the post-war management of infant industries in Japan, Singapore and South Korea, where government technocrats decided policy and controlled capital investment. In that sense, Rwanda demonstrates a new and updated form of ‘directed’ agriculture in Africa.

Where directed agriculture fails, the consequences can be catastrophic. In Rwanda, the danger of famine would be compounded by the political risks of resistance among rural populations. To secure their compliance, smallholders receive subsidised seed and fertiliser from the government, and the promise, eventually, of a stake in larger co-operatives. Small farmers may be risk-averse but, contrary to some assumptions, they are invariably not hostile to innovation. Although few will be convinced by a seminar, most will be persuaded by the example of a neighbour who has prospered. In Kigali, policymakers have kept a close eye on Mount Kenya.

On closer inspection, Kenyan horticulture shares many characteristics of ‘directed’ agriculture – whether in Rwanda, or elsewhere. An emphasis on ‘bulking’ and uniformity of production is common to both countries. Large exporters arrange distribution of the best seed varieties, fertiliser and other inputs via farmers’ groups. Instead of following government diktat, smallholders follow the stringent demands of the export market. Kenya’s horticulture farmers have prospered because they reliably produce high quality vegetables to meet the short inventory lead times of European supermarkets. The key difference is that, because horticulture is not a staple food, Kenya’s dynamic private sector operates without interference from the government.

An African answer to globalisation

The opportunities for African agriculture in world trade are real, and demonstrable. Where food security is precarious, state direction of staple crops is inevitable in order to build up a national grain reserve. That is a different priority from the emphasis on self-sufficiency that has become familiar from AGRA and other donor agencies. Self-sufficiency implies growing enough to feed yourself – that is, to grow food for your own family. It is not the same as national food security, which requires access to a stable supply of food. More importantly, it obscures the crucial principle that agriculture must be competitive in local, or international, markets.

Many African ministers, buoyed by a spate of new investment and expressions of solidarity from Beijing, are fond of citing China’s state-sponsored capitalism as an alternative to development models proposed by western donors. Yet China’s Green Revolution, launched in 1978, followed a more nuanced trajectory than many of the ideas recently touted for Africa. To achieve self-sufficiency in grain, Beijing shifted production from ‘people’s communes’ to household farms, and opened state-controlled agricultural markets to private trade. Self-sufficiency in food brought political stability as a foundation for industry and manufacturing.

[quote align=”center” color=”#999999″]The root of poverty is lack of money – not a lack of food.[/quote]

A Chinese-style industrial revolution will not happen in Africa without reliable power, infrastructure and effective regional integration. But a genuine Green Revolution for Africa in the 21st century is within the bounds of possibility. Three decades on, rising prosperity in the populous economies of China and India has increased demand for production of resource-intensive meat, adding to pressure on finite reserves of land and water – and driving demand for cattle feed. The global trade in agriculture is both an opportunity and a threat. For Africa to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks, the overriding priority is to improve skills and know-how.

The prospects for African agriculture hinge on producing crops which others want to buy. The most productive investment will be in locations where farmers, large and small, are able to integrate their systems in response to market demand. Where the efficiency and low costs of smallholders can be combined with the market access and quality controls of largeholders and exporters, Africa’s farmers can create a dynamic and market-led industry. For policymakers, the key working principle is to remember that the root of poverty is lack of money – not a lack of food.

COUNTERPOINTS

The Counterpoints series presents a critical account of defining ideas, in and about Africa. The scope is broad, from international development policy to popular perceptions of the continent.

Counterpoints address ‘Big Picture’ questions, without the constraints of prevailing opinion and orthodoxy. The arguments are forward-looking but not speculative, informed by the present yet concerned with the future.

In publishing this series, Africa Research Institute hopes to foster competing ideas, discussion and debate. The views expressed in Counterpoints are those of the authors, and not necessarily those of Africa Research Institute.

The post Why Africa can make it big in agriculture – Mark Ashurst and Stephen Mbithi appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

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.

The post Kenya’s Flying Vegetables: Small farmers and the ‘food miles’ debate appeared first on Africa Research Institute.

In this Policy Voice, Chidara Muchineripi, a management consultant from Harare, argues that indigenous crops should play a more important role in African agriculture. Chidara, who is next in line for the chieftainship of the semi-arid district of Gutu, built a consensus amongst local people in favour of growing traditional crops, namely finger millet, pearl millet and sorghum. Traditional crops are scarcely grown in Gutu, with local people favouring commercial crops introduced during the colonial era.

Indigenous crops, he argues, have a number of advantages over the regions staple crop, maize. Most importantly, traditional crops adapt well to different climates and produce higher yields in regions of low rainfall. They require fewer expensive inputs and can be stored for longer periods. Seven villages in the Chinyika communities have been growing indigenous crops for the past three years. Over 5,000 people now have food adequate supplies and a steady cash income from the sale of their surplus crop.

Chidara makes a strong case for policy makers to take local knowledge seriously. But there is no room for nostalgia in these pages. Modern farming innovations have an equal role to play. This Policy Voice argues strongly in favour of developing more productive seed varieties, teaching rural communities improved farming techniques and encouraging farmers to grow a range of crops. Fostering change in rural Africa will require a combination of local knowledge and modern innovations.

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