Kenya's Chronic Food Crisis: Natural Disasters or Logical Consequences? [1]

by Soren Ambrose

August 2006

The Setting

Kenya is one of the best-known countries in what is for many Americans still a rather obscure continent. Kenya emerged from the early-1960s independence era as one of the most economically developed countries in Africa, with more substantial infrastructure and larger educated and business- oriented classes than most of its peers. Kenya has managed to maintain a relatively stable government and relative peace throughout its independent history, and was long a favorite of the Western powers as a diplomatic and business partner. It serves as a regional headquarters for the United Nations and countless development and aid agencies.

Kenya is best-known, however, for its well-developed tourist industry, which has introduced thousands of non-Africans to safaris and the singular experience of seeing lions, giraffes, elephants, and dozens of other large and famous species in their natural home. On a continent commonly associated with civil war and abject poverty, and in a subregion with some of the most insecure, chaotic, and dysfunctional states, Kenya seems to be doing exceptionally well.

If that is true – and in relative terms, it is – then why does Kenya experience nearly annual droughts and famines that bring millions of its people to the brink of death by starvation? And can this pattern be reversed?

The Dimensions of the Crisis

It is now a commonplace observation among Kenyans and those who follow African news that the drought-and-famine “emergencies” in Kenya have, over the last ten to fifteen years, become a virtually permanent state of affairs. Over a million Kenyans living in arid and semi-arid lands – which means the entire northern half and eastern third of the country – are receiving food aid year-round. At its most intense, over 4 million Kenyans – well over 10% of the country's roughly 30 million people – are dependent on food aid to stay alive.

2005-06 has been a particularly bad year. Drawing on Kenyan government findings, James Oduor, a long-time official in various government agencies dealing with drought management, reports that the period from September 2005 to February 2006 was the period of greatest drought impact in postindependence Kenyan history (i.e., since 1963). [2]

Before this year, the most severe period was 1999-2001. There has, however, only been one short period since late 1998 – in part of 2003 – when Kenya has not been experiencing some degree of official emergency. And despite heavy rainfall in much of the country during March and April, precipitation patterns in the vulnerable areas make Oduor virtually certain that the government will have to extend the present emergency declaration to February 2007.

Why have the droughts and resulting famines in northern and eastern Kenya become so much more frequent and intense in the last 15 years? There is no single answer – it is not just a matter of global warming, exhaustion of overtaxed lands, distorted markets, or faulty government responses. It is all of these and much more. To use an African proverb, with some irony, we must ask “where the rain started beating us,” so that a path back to sustainability can be found.

Causes of the Crisis

Few observers in Kenya question the existence of global warming, or the tremendous dimensions of the threat it poses. As complex as our analysis may get, there is no evading the simple fact that the weather has become more unpredictable and more dramatically severe over the last 15 years. It is now widely acknowledged that large-scale deforestation and abuse of water catchment areas have contributed to an increasingly dry climate in several parts of the country. Indigenous forest cover accounts for only about 2% of Kenya’s land today, with 10% reckoned to be the prerequisite for a balanced environment. This recognition has had serious practical and political consequences over the last year, as the national government has taken steps to evict tens of thousands of “squatters” in national forests on the grounds that their farming activities have put the entire country’s well-being at risk by despoiling the catchment areas. The evictions were poorly handled in many cases, with residents who believed they had valid titles to land told to leave but given no assistance or options by the government. Makeshift settlements that could be called refugee camps for internally-displaced people popped up, and people continue to try to reestablish themselves in the forests.

While action to protect Kenya’s water catchment areas is necessary, it is also true that the most significant contributors to global climate change are the industrialized countries of the Global North such as the United States. Kenya, of course, has virtually no influence over their consumption and patterns.

The central problem, however, is absolute poverty. People in the arid and semi-arid areas never had much of a cushion, and year after year of unfavorable weather has eroded not only their resources but their adaptability. Meanwhile, the population continues to grow, with most families now numbering seven or more people, thus increasing needs and stress on the natural resources. Although there has been economic growth in Kenya, it is restricted to urban areas (and to narrow classes within those areas). Coping mechanisms have been exhausted, and relentless desperation has meant people have had no breaks during which they can recoup and apply their creativity to improving their situation.

Many of the solutions imposed by so-called experts have, in fact, worsened the cycles of poverty and crisis. Debt accumulated as a result of the oil price hikes of the 1970s and multiple development loans contracted during the same period rendered these countries unable to attract credit or loans on private markets. The IMF and World Bank were their only recourse.

Through the 1980s and 1990s, most developing countries steadily took out loans from both institutions which committed them to measures that often amounted to turning over economic policymaking to Washington-based bureaucrats. Those measures – the standard components of virtually all Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) – included deregulation of trade and investment, deep cuts in domestic budgets, including in health and education, massive layoffs of public sector employees, privatization of government-owned enterprises, curtailment of subsidies, hikes in interest rates and other measures to restrict credit, and a general re-orientation to exports as opposed to support for domestic industry and self-sufficiency.

One straightforward example of this re-orientation was the shift in Kenyan food policy. From the time of independence until the interventions of the IMF and World Bank (also known as the international financial institutions, or IFIs), the Kenyan government had an official policy of achieving food self-sufficiency. [3]

That changed to “food security” in the mid-1980s – in other words, not necessarily producing all the food needed within the country, but ensuring an adequate supply from whatever source. And indeed, an analysis by KIPPRA, Kenya’s top economic think-tank, which often collaborates with the government and the World Bank, finds that “After the [IMF/World Bankdesigned] reforms, the country moved from broad self-sufficiency in production of most food staples to a net importer.” [4]

By instituting such changes, the programs of the IMF and World Bank were the harbingers of “globalization” for much of the developing world. In practical terms, that meant shifting strategies away from developing domestic capacity to relying on international trade. Countries would focus on what they produced most efficiently – their “comparative advantage,” selling those products on international markets and using the proceeds to buy that which they did not produce so efficiently. Kenya, then, would focus on growing and selling coffee, tea, and flowers; if it needed to buy food from outside to make up for the land and resources devoted to those cash crops, it would be able to use the extra income it was earning.

The problem – ironically, given the guiding principle of market forces – was that the comparative advantage for most of the countries where the IMF and World Bank were active was cash crops that grow best in tropical climates. The increased focus on those commodities increased global supplies and depressed global prices, often to the lowest price levels since the founding of the IFIs, shortly after World War II.

By 1996, the Bank and Fund were promoting a plan to transform the Kenyan National Cereals and Produce Board (NCPB) “into a commercially viable entity free to make independent commercial decisions.” [5]

This commercialization of the NCPB was the key move; it effectively became a governmentowned grain marketer. Its role was blurred, however.

As James Oduor describes it, the agency was in effect hired by the government to procure maize for the country’s strategic grain reserve and was asked to play a role in stabilizing prices, both on the supply and demand side. This, Oduor points out, was an exact contradiction: it was to act as a commercial entity trying to make a profit, but was also asked to stabilize prices by paying above market-rates for maize when the price was too low, and sell at artificially low prices when the government determined that consumer prices were too high. This schizophrenic identity guaranteed failure, and indeed Oduor predicts that, saddled again with skyrocketing debts, the NCPB will be in danger of collapse in the near future.

But one thing the NCPB, and the other agricultural parastatals, were not doing was providing farmers with all-encompassing marketing services. And for those farmers who still dealt with NCPB in its new incarnation – mostly larger maize farmers – the historical problem of late payments persisted, as the agency was still dependent on the federal Treasury to provide it with the funds used to purchase grain stocks. [6] Some of the negative aspects of the old NCPB, then, lingered, while farmers were introduced to the world of open markets in a baptism by fire.

Once the dictates of the Bank were put into practice, farmers and consumers soon discovered that the new system lacked mechanisms to support robust production and provide for orderly and fair pricing and distribution. Farmers did not have the capital to ensure delivery of needed inputs or to pursue options once they harvested their produce.

They also lacked the information and skills to assume for themselves the marketing role formerly assumed by NCPB. Middlemen were quick to exploit the new situation. As Justus Monda of the small farmers’ organization Ngoma points out, the system was changed, but no legal framework was put in place to facilitate a new one. His organization is only now beginning to succeed in getting local authorities to regulate the middlemen who took over the NCPB’s roles.

Monda outlines the stark impact of the IFI reforms once they took hold. By 2001, which he identifies as the worst point in his area, farmers were routinely paid no more than 400 shillings for a 90-kilogram bag of maize. The cost of production was 719 shillings per bag. The situation was similar for other products; he cites the example of milk, which was selling for between 7 and 9.5 shillings per liter, with cost of production set at 12 shillings per liter. Farmers were desperate, with protests and even small-scale riots breaking out. His organization, Ngoma came together at that point, and has gradually made progress in demanding reforms and better services, many of which contradict the standard advice of the IFIs.

KIPPRA notes that during the adjustment period, “Most commodities, particularly food commodities and industrial crops, declined in production. The worst decline occurred for maize, rice, milk, cotton, sisal and coffee… Climatic factors such as drought are important in explaining Kenya’s agricultural performance, but the major factors are policy-related; they include poor coordination and sequencing of liberalized policies. [7]

The IFIs’ certainty that free market solutions would free Kenyan agricultural markets from inefficiency has proven exactly wrong. The focus on adopting the “correct” policies was allowed to obscure the real-world impact of replacing a flawed system before having a new system that accounts for the needs of both farmers and consumers ready to take its place.

Solutions to the Ongoing Crises

The 2005 famine started to become evident early in the year, but it was only with a media blitz in mid-December that Kenyans throughout the country, as well as the international community, began to really confront the magnitude of the crisis. Shipments of food aid increased dramatically.

The US government has responded by increasing food aid deliveries. There is little doubt that these shipments have saved lives, but questions arise about the ways that aid is delivered and whether it can help resolve the longer-term problems.

Donations of emergency food relief are not the only kind of food aid delivered by the U.S. government’s “Food for Peace” programs. The US also provides “program food aid.” This food is donated to non-governmental organizations, which in turn sell it to traders in Kenya (or whatever country the donation is made for), using the proceeds to fund their work there. This process, called “monetization,” is very controversial.

The US is virtually the only country that still uses monetized food aid. USAID officials are definitely aware of the arguments against it; the agency, in fact, requires NGOs applying for such donations to complete a “Bellmon analysis,” detailing both how the donation will not have a substantial impact on local food markets and how the proceeds will support programs that promote food security.

Mohammed Qazilbash at CARE, one of the biggest recipients of program food aid, maintains that the amount of food coming into Kenya for monetization is insubstantial, and given the tremendous needs in Kenya and the positive work the resources realized through monetized food aid can be put to, he finds little reason to agonize over the finer points of monetization. But program food aid makes many who work with it uneasy. One step removed from Qazilbash’s position on the ground, the president of CARE International, Peter Bell, acknowledges that his agency monetizes 60% of the food it receives from the U.S. government, but worries that “shipping food across oceans can be expensive and slow.” Even for conventional emergency relief, Bell looks at U.S. shipments and asks, “What is the potential for procuring and transporting commodities from areas closer to the targeted populations in need? The flexibility to do so, especially in the early months of an emergency, may help relief organizations to more rapidly distribute food and other resources. Procuring food locally also gives a boost to local markets.” [8]

Is food aid in Kenya working? Most of those working on the ground have a common answer: Yes, it is keeping people alive. But the system is not succeeding in changing the situation, or even setting the stage for change. The cyclic nature of the crises has made the aid workers into emergency room doctors who patch up their trauma cases, certain that they will see the same people with the same wounds tomorrow or the next day.

Terry Lee (a pseudonym) of USAID) says, “We are not doing it right; the whole system has to be revisited. We are doing more harm than good.” Given the alternative – mass starvation – the last statement may be an exaggeration, but Lee wants to emphasize the fact that even a poorly-implemented development project imparts some skills or resources, while apart from keeping people alive, nothing changes with poorly-implemented emergency food relief programs. Bishop Mutua largely agrees. “They will spend billions to feed us,” says Mutua, “but not millions to help us feed ourselves.”

Leaving the weather aside for the moment, change can start with the government, with the people, or with the donors, but will eventually require active engagement among all three.

Oduor concurs, but contends also that adjustments to the existing system could be introduced that would open up space for improvement. Although the government and donor agencies have regular coordination meetings under the auspices of the Kenya Food Security Steering Group, power imbalances still hamper the process. “Once you’ve asked for food,” says Oduor, “donors don’t want to hear your voice.”

He supports call for greater participation by recipient- country governments in crafting food aid policies. Routine problems like timing (food arrives when it isn’t needed – whether it is late for the last crisis or early for the next one) and quantity (Kenya has on occasion gotten much more of a commodity than it requested or could use) could be easily averted with more mutual respect and communication. Donors also need to find out what type of aid is most needed. Elizabeth Mueni of Oxfam GB in Nairobi points to instances of hard maize being delivered to areas with no access to water for boiling it. “And sometimes you don’t need maize,” says Oduor, “but sometimes you get macaroni.”

What Oduor would most like to see in a reformed system that gives more voice to recipients is experimentation with using cash rather than actual food. Vouchers, or actual shillings in the pocket, could in some cases be better for markets and greatly reduce the expense and complications involved in delivering food aid. There are potential problems, he acknowledges, but he believes that only by trying a new system will Kenya come closer to stabilizing its perpetual crises.

Conclusions

ActionAid Kenya has been supporting the work of both Ngoma, Justus Monda’s farmers’ group in Rift Valley Province, and Genesis, the group directed by Bishop Mutua in Eastern Province. Both groups have been able to report real change in their local circumstances as a result of putting steady pressure on government officials and legislators. Educational efforts, including a film Monda made with ActionAid, outreach to new constituencies – for example Ngoma’s forays to neighboring Nyanza Province to train farmers and learn about the different circumstances there – have strengthened the organizations and the impact they have been able to have. Mutua has, after ten years, been able to get his local members of parliament – one of whom is Deputy Speaker in Parliament and another of whom is the leading contender in the next presidential election (expected in December 2007) – to talk regularly about long-term solutions like irrigation, at last, instead of focusing just on the provision of regular food aid. Monda has been able to address citizen’s fora on trade, and now addresses Trade Ministry officials regularly, and was even invited to join a recent government delegation to examine agricultural development in Malaysia.

Political organizing and pressure, together with unrelenting local organizing and self-help initiatives, are having far more positive impacts in different regions in Kenya than the millions of dollars that have accompanied IFI policy reforms have ever had. For that matter, they are doing more to change the system and the future in Kenya than the massive efforts made to deliver food relief. By continuing to organize and advocate on the group, and by urging the Kenyan government to stand up to outsiders who continue to peddle failed advice, Kenya may very well one day be able to describe itself as food secure despite its unforgiving climate.

Prepared by Soren Ambrose, Solidarity Africa Network, Nairobi Kenya, August 2006

Endnotes