Adopt a Holistic Strategy to Tackle Frequent Famine Crisis

Business Daily (Nairobi)

10 June 2011

opinion

Finance minister Uhuru Kenyatta mentioned the word “irrigation” at least 41 times in his Budget Speech on Wednesday. In the first mention which came on the fourth of his 32-page speech, Mr Kenyatta said Treasury had set aside billions of shillings “to expand and construct irrigation projects countrywide and transform agriculture into business to create employment, reduce poverty and assure food security.”

In all, the finance minister allocated Sh100 billion to various government agencies in the agricultural sector, which amounted to about 11 per cent of the Sh1.15 trillion budget.

It is by any measure a significant allocation to a sector that is described as the backbone of Kenya’s economy, accounting for an estimated eight out of every 10 jobs either directly or indirectly. But like has been the case many times in the past, Kenya’s chronic food insecurity problem is not exclusively attributable to lack of an irrigation system.

Mismanagement and lack of maintenance of existing irrigation schemes, poor storage facilities, inefficient distribution systems and lack of marketing systems have all contributed to the now regular food shortages in the country, while also squeezing what could be lucrative markets for farmers’ produce. In the government’s vision, thousands of acres of land will be brought under irrigation both in high potential areas and also in the arid and semi-arid parts of the country.

This grand scheme will, however, weigh little in addressing the food insecurity problem, unless the other cited setbacks are addressed simultaneously. The folly of reviving irrigation schemes without addressing the marketing and distribution bottlenecks was evident two years ago when farmers in the then newly restored Bura and Hola irrigation schemes watched in dismay as their maize harvest rotted in the farms for lack of marketing opportunities. The desolate state of the Mwea Irrigation scheme- which is now being revived at an estimated cost of Sh16 billion- is also a good example of everything that could go wrong with well intended, but poorly maintained irrigation projects.

This newspaper welcomes the government’s effort to boost food security by moving the country away from exclusively rain-fed agriculture.

But on behalf of the tax payers who are funding the multi-billion Shilling projects, we demand for complete accountability from all the government agencies charged with implementing the schemes. Further, we demand to see clear, long-term plans that will holistically address farmers’ problems and not just knee-jerk reactions to the now frequent famine crisis.

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