State silence on food crisis disastrous

I have begun to feel like I am battling a headwind in Kenya, and increasingly hopelessly, as we hurtle towards the biggest food crisis in living memory to governmental silence. Not even a cost-free call to plant extra.

For while, it seems, we can notice we have a drought in the north, we cannot also notice that it comes as the whole world moves into food shortages caused by the Russian war in Ukraine and the parallel and related cut-off in fertiliser supplies.

Instead, our tiny glimmer of dialogue around hunger relates to the pastoralists of the north-facing their third serious drought in a decade, far from government, national newsrooms and social media noise. But no one has sat up yet with a realisation that this goes massively beyond that drought.

Yet I found an infographic my team did two years ago on Kenya’s lack of self-sufficiency in wheat. It showed that 30 percent of our wheat came from Russia — so that’s not coming this year. It showed another 12 percent came from Ukraine, so that’s under serious threat.

It showed another 19 percent coming from Argentina, but now every country in Africa that imported wheat from Russia and Ukraine will be chasing that Argentinian wheat.

Except, if you check out the world’s commodity news — and we have to presume someone in government does, in pursuit of Kenyan food security — Argentina is having a wheat-growing issue too, just as everyone is, everywhere in the world.

Argentina plants wheat from the end of May, but, this year, it is short of fertiliser, which is essential, but in short supply and far more expensive.

Its mechanised farming is paying far more for diesel too, with Bloomberg concluding that most wheat growing in Argentina could become loss-making in 2022, and, on top of that, commodity traders expecting the Argentinian government to curb wheat exports to deal with its own soaring bread and food prices.

That leaves the 28 percent that we were getting from Canada, Germany, the US and Australia. All of them are struggling with wheat production, fertiliser access and prices, and soaring oil prices.

In Canada, which previously supplied nine percent of our wheat, the first progress report, earlier this month, on the 2022 winter wheat crop, indicated the poorest crop for over a decade, with 30 percent in good condition, compared to 53 percent this time last year. It’s not obviously stepping up to increase its exports to us seven-fold.

And then comes Kenya’s own wheat production, which accounts for just 10 percent of what we consume. Fertiliser subsidies aren’t going to help us with this. Our problem won’t be the price of fertiliser when we can get very little fertiliser at all.

Our bread will be gone, so enjoy your last slices.

And the story is much the same for maize and ugali too. We produce far more of our own maize. But, this year, with scant fertiliser, if we need imports again — guess which country was amongst the biggest exporters —yes, Ukraine.

This year’s food shortages, with no bread, no wheat flour, maybe half the mealie maize and ugali, are going to cut very deep indeed, alongside shortages of all other foods too (no fertiliser and high-priced fuel), but they are not the government’s fault.

As well as ending the lives of more than 50,000 people, Ukrainian and Russian, through his Russian invasion, President Putin is delivering this particular food crisis to Africa, where it will kill many multiple times more people than the missiles have killed amongst Russia’s own young men and its neighbour’s women and children.

However, what is our government’s fault is the silence on home-made fertilisers and extra planting. Our politicians are too busy trying to get votes to run the country to care, or even notice, if we starve by autumn.

Then, when we do, we can declare a natural disaster, but, this time, there will be no pile of food coming from anywhere else. Of course, I get it that no one cares. But just remember when people are dying, you could have saved those lives this planting season.