Soberly address food insecurity

We all should heave a collective sigh of relief with the price of ugali set to come down as shipments of imported maize start docking at the port of Mombasa.

President William Ruto will be keen, and rightly so, to claim political points for managing one of the key factors behind the rising cost of living. And he will fully deserve it, as well as the recognition that he has fulfilled at least one of his numerous campaign promises.

But he will have to accept that he will not bask in glory alone. Opposition leader Raila Odinga will also move to claim credit after having issued an ultimatum for the government to reduce the cost of food. His legions of supporters will easily swallow the story that it was opposition pressure that worked.

Anyway, what matters beyond the pissing contest between two grown men is that Kenya’s staple will be more affordable. For now. Meanwhile we have to accept that there are issues still to be addressed.

One of Dr Ruto’s first executive actions upon becoming President was lifting the ban on importation and growing of GMO crops. This was a controversial decision, given that many people in Kenya, and across the world, have valid concerns about the possible harmful effects of genetically modified organisms.

Complaints raised were studiously ignored by the government, as a conglomeration of pro-GMO lobbyists—the type usually heavily funded by global biotechnology corporations—launched aggressive propaganda campaigns against any individual or group raising the alarm.

Concerns about the safety of GMO foodstuffs will not go away just because the President declares them safe or multinational corporations will spend billions protecting and promoting their business opportunities.

If the government will not go back on the decision that was rammed through by executive fiat, the least it can do to assuage the valid concerns of Kenyans is to require that any maize flour or other food products in the market derived from GMO seeds be clearly labelled as such. That is a simple concession that will give consumers the freedom to choose. The problem is that labelling, as seen from experience elsewhere, will be viciously fought by the gigantic multinationals.

Valid concerns

We will soon see if the government is on the side of Kenyans who have valid concerns about consuming GMOs or in the pockets of greedy biotech multinationals accustomed to buying and bullying their way into decision-making organs.

Then there is the whole issue of food sustainability. Other than bridging the deficit in local production, achieving lower consumer prices through importation of duty-free grain can only be a short-term measure. The government has waxed lyrical on how responsible it is and will, therefore, not subsidise food but engages in great deception because waiving import taxes on foreign grain is itself a subsidy. That is money that would otherwise have gone to the Exchequer.

There is also lots of gibberish about subsiding production rather than consumption and, therefore, interventions in that regard going to fertilisers rather than the produce. It is still a subsidy which ultimately benefits the consumer at taxpayer expense. What we are not really addressing is what it will take for us to be self-sufficient in basic foodstuffs such as maize, wheat and rice as we were in the past.

Agriculture Cabinet Secretary Mithika Linturi, while unveiling a scheme to have maize grown in Zambia for the Kenyan market, repeated the well-known fact that our production costs are very high. If our farms cannot produce competitively, let us surrender to importing all our grain requirements from Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Brazil, Ukraine and other places where farmers are much more efficient.

We will have affordable flour on our shelves, and we will never again have those absurd government pledges to increase producer prices and at the same time lower retail prices.

In the meantime, that Zambia proposal bears looking into. It may sound ludicrous at first glance but that country has surplus arable land that has, in fact, become a magnet for commercial farmers from South Africa and Zimbabwe.

We can do the same, but Linturi’s big mistake is suggesting that it is the government to invest in farming abroad. If it is such a good idea, leave it to the private sector to put in the money.

And while at it, let’s also have transparency on the issuing of duty-free import permits, which are shrouded in secrecy. We may also need a clear explanation why rice is on the list of duty-free imports yet there is no shortage of the product.

[email protected]. @MachariaGaitho