Achieving food and nutrition security is an international and national goal. Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) seeks to end hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture by 2030.
Article 43(1)c of the Kenyan Constitution states that every person has the right to be free from hunger, and to have adequate food of acceptable quality. This is reinforced with respect to children in Article 53.
Such a high-level and rights-based approach ensures that food security is treated as a right and not a favour. Given the high numbers of those suffering from extreme hunger and malnutrition, Kenya is far from achieving food security. The Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed the fragility of our food system. What are some of the factors contributing to this sad situation?
Narrow view
Food security is more than just a full stomach. Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food that meets their food preferences and dietary needs for an active and healthy life.
This points to several dimensions of food security that need to be taken into account, for example availability of adequate and quality food, access to the food, that is the socio-economic and politico-legal arrangements that enable citizens to gain possession of and use the food, and stability – resilience of the food system to environmental, market or other types of shocks.
Unfortunately, our food policies focus on increasing agricultural productivity and yields at the expense of the other equally important dimensions of food security such as access and sustainability.
This has led to the prioritisation of only a few food crops (such as maize) and promotion of conventional agricultural methods that use a lot of inputs such as synthetic fertilisers and agro-chemicals, which have detrimental impacts on soils, ecosystems, biodiversity, and human health.
The food system is a complex web of activities and sectors involving the production, processing, transport, and consumption of food and is best conceptualised as an eco-agri-food-health system. It is often lost on many that apart from ending hunger and malnutrition, SDG 2 roots for sustainable food systems that maintain ecosystems and genetic diversity of seeds and enhance resilience and adaptation to climate change.
Adoption of agroecology is among strategies that can help transform our food system into a more eco-friendly, resilient, and inclusive one.
Farmer-centred policies
Most Kenyans are aware of the often repeated statistics: Agriculture employs most of the Kenyan population — especially in the rural areas, supports all other sectors and contribute significantly to GDP, more than 80 percent of Kenyan farmers are small-scale, with women providing most of the farm labour, and so on.
Simple logic and the tenets of democracy would dictate that policies should reflect and address the needs of the poor and vulnerable majority. However, the policies in place show otherwise.
For example, more than 80 percent of small-scale farmers rely on the informal seed sector, yet the country’s seed laws and regulations criminalise the informal seed sector.
It is illegal to sell uncertified seeds in Kenya, including the traditional seeds sold in local markets. The conservation and use of local crop varieties provide a wealth of crop genetic diversity and is recognised as critical to climate change adaptation.
Small-scale farmers know how to sustainably produce enough food, but the economic and political rules that govern their food system are often set against them. The capture of the food system and policies by the elite is well known.
Kenya is famous for developing ‘good’ policies which are poorly implemented. If not implemented, the good policies simply remain good intentions. The poor implementation can be attributed to several factors.
Impractical implementation plans or strategies, some of which simply repeat the policy statements, is one factor. Few and poorly designed incentive structures is another. Policies require social, economic, and fiscal incentives and disincentives to implement.
In 2003, African countries committed to allocate at least 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture. Kenya allocates less than four percent.
Achieving food and nutrition security requires appreciation of its multidimensional nature and implementation of pro-poor and eco-friendly food policies.
Taking back control of the food system by farmers, communities and citizens will be crucial to the realisation of the right to food.
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