Columnists

Let’s heed warnings of food crisis

food

As the world slowly recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, we are sliding to the brink of another catastrophe, which is a global food crisis. Food reserves are dwindling globally.

Last month’s McKinsey podcast, ‘The rising risk of a global food crisis’, by Daniel Aminetzah and Nicolas Denis, highlights the problem, noting that previous supply-demand scenarios in the global food system were primarily based on weather and other supply-related phenomena. This also follows other warnings from the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres.

The production of two of the most consumed cereals, corn and wheat, are already being affected by the war.

Its impact is already being felt in Kenya and we need to start thinking creatively as a country.

We are already witnessing how delayed rains in China, a heat wave in India and disruptions by the Ukraine/Russia war have affected production of the cereals from the countries that dominate food production in the world.

The top three producers of corn and wheat in the world account for more than 70 percent of the production.

Drought is also ravaging the Horn of Africa, including the northern parts of Kenya where the government is intensifying relief efforts. Further, skyrocketing oil prices have pushed inflation to alarming levels.

According to the United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA), Kenya is expected to produce about 3.2 million metric tons (mmt) of maize against the consumption of 4.1mmt.

The balance will be imported largely from Tanzania and Uganda. However, fertiliser shortages will undermine this year’s crop and force exporting countries to stop any supplies.

In 2021, wheat consumption in Kenya jumped to 2.7 mmt, leading to importation of 2.4 mmt against the production of 300,000 tons. The cereal is increasingly becoming the source of calories, especially among the millennials in Kenya.

In the past three months alone, the price of wheat products has gone up by 60 percent. The Ukraine/Russia issue is not about to end, and it will take years before normal supply chains are restored.

In my view, African countries must immediately begin to address food insecurity before it becomes a source of conflict that might also take several years to reverse.

But for Africa to effectively respond to this looming food crisis it requires both short- and long-term interventions. First is to approach the crisis from a global perspective by keeping the markets open and discouraging nationalist intervention such as India’s banning of cereal exports.

While food stocks last, we must support farmers. Governments must seek to subsidise fertilisers and other inputs as a strategy to restore normal production in the coming harvest season.

And while the crisis intensifies, we must not forget vulnerable households. As such, governments must encourage social protection programmes to cushion the consumers at this critical juncture.

This is because, food affordability has increasingly become a challenge in poor neighbourhoods whereby they spend as much as 55 percent of their income on food.

Even more important are the interventions needed to secure the future of food in Africa. One question that keeps on coming up is: Should the continent be dependent on other nations for her food security?

Of course, the answer is no. We must therefore work towards building a resilient food system to achieve food security on the continent.

We cannot think of a sustainable food system in Africa without objectively discussing land use. Continued subdivision of land into unsustainable pieces for the purpose of promoting subsistence farming is a suicidal strategy.

All top producers of grain globally have mechanised production from large-scale farming. Africa holds 6o percent of the arable land globally. Let us use the land we have to feed the world and by that, I mean we take agriculture more seriously.