Kenya - Only 15 - 50% Of Farmland In North Rift Prepared For Planting - 8 Mo. Food Reserve On Hand

[hatrack]

Available food reserves can only last for the next eight months.

The Government says unless farmers in Rift Valley prepare their farms in time and plant crops for this season, the country was likely to experience serious food shortages.

Agriculture PS, Dr Romano Kiome, says only 15 to 50 per cent of agricultural land had been prepared in the North Rift. Under normal circumstances, 50 to 80 per cent of the land in these areas would be prepared by this time of the year in readiness for planting.

Besides the post-election chaos, erratic weather and high prices of inputs have complicated the food status. Kiome says the country has 53 million bags of maize reserves, which are enough to meet the country's needs for the next eight months.

However, Kiome noted that the violence had no major effect on food status in most parts of the country except North and Central Rift areas.

EDIT

http://allafrica.com/stories/200803032042.html

[Fledermaus]

1. They must be planting corn for ethanol instead...evrybody knows that

[GliderGuider]

2. Probably not

GROWING ENERGY IN KENYA

Although companies in Kenya have plans to produce significant volumes of biofuel, none have yet done so. It looked like Green Power East Africa would be first to produce commercial quantities, when its plant came online in 2006. That plant mainly uses cotton seeds for raw material and that caused trouble. Gregor von Drabich of Green Power East Africa, says, "Currently, we have problems getting enough cotton seeds at a fair price." He adds that Green Power East Africa's plant could potentially make 12 tons of biodiesel every day, but it has only reached 10% of that volume so far. Worse still, Green Power East Africa has temporarily shut down the plant, because of a lack for affordable raw materials. As a result, the company has tested alternative sources for making biodiesel. Drabich says, "We have tested soy bean, sunflower, castor, avocado, coconut, and jatropha, which holds a huge potential in the future."

Appreciating the need for a sustained supply Okello is working with owners of small farms in Kenya's Coast Province. The farmers are being taught to grow jatropha and coconut, which produce high volumes of raw materials. "These crops and select others have high caloric value, hence their choice," Okello says.

Jatropha is especially interesting: It produces dry, black poisonous nuts that are about 35% oil. In the past, jatropha was planted primarily to stop erosion and prevent land from turning to desert. It grows in very poor soil, and an established plant can produce nuts for half a century. But as Drabich points out, "Jatropha is only starting up in Kenya now."

Sugarcane is another possible source of biofuel. Peter Kegode, an agricultural economist who serves as chairman of the Sugar Campaign for Change sees it as a driver of Africa's coming economic boom. "Forget information communication technology. Biodiesel is what can make Africa leapfrog into a developed economy," says Kegode. According to Sugar Campaign for Change's Web site, Approximately 5 million people depend on sugarcane farming in Kenya either directly or indirectly. Kegode is one of many in Kenya talking up the potential of a biofuels industry to create jobs.

But even if Kenya could develop a viable biofuels industry, that doesn't necessarily mean that it should. "Kenya, with its food problems, would be better served to invest in food production," says David Pimentel of Cornell University. "Kenya also has a fuel-wood shortage and tends to burn crop residues. Removing and burning crop residues leaves the soil exposed to increased wind and water erosion. This devastates the productivity of the soil."

So biofuel production is unlikely to add to Kenya's woes in the near future. They have enough troubles as it is.

[Fledermaus]

4. But, but, but....Paul,

You have told us all over and over that the famines in Africa are the result of biofuels

[GliderGuider]

5. Nope.

My message has always been that the unconstrained global development of biofuels would make the African situation more difficult because of rising global food prices due to arbitrage. Given that Africa imports 30% of their calories and their agricultural yields aren't growing, even the fact that they are themselves doing little biofuel production won't insulate them. In a globalized marketplace for food and energy Africa doesn't need to grow their own biofuels to feel the effects.

What I have said over and over that agrifuels are a terrible idea no matter where they are produced, and those on the margins of the global food system (like Africa and South Asia) would pay the earliest and highest price for that mistake.

[Fledermaus]

6. I run my car on E20. Please tell me how I made the 50% of the farmers in Kenya

stop planting.

[GliderGuider]

8. You didn't.

"The post-election chaos, erratic weather and high prices of inputs" did.

You really need to get a life. Wandering around E/E trying to bite my ankles is pathetic.

[Fledermaus]

11. You're a Kook peddling BS

[Nihil]

9. You didn't stop them planting ...

... you are just making sure that more of them will starve.

You did not take the seeds out of their hands but you will have
contributed to the rising prices doing exactly that.

You did not prevent them from growing crops but you have but you
have ensured that not only is there less grain available to be sent
to them in relief operations but that what little is available costs
significantly more - hence the relief organisations cannot buy as
much for every dollar that they extract from people.

You have taken food out of circulation to put it in your car.

Happy now? :eyes:

[Fledermaus]

10. Where have you been the last 20 years?

Why Mexico's Small Corn Farmers Go Hungry

It seems paradoxical to argue that cheap food hurts poor people. But three-quarters of the world's poor are rural. When subsidized imports undercut their products, they starve. Agricultural subsidies, which rob developing countries of the ability to export crops, have become the most important dispute at the W.T.O. Wealthy countries do far more harm to poor nations with these subsidies than they do good with foreign aid.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/chiapas/031203_chiapas.cfm

Is the US Killing African Farmers?

It’s shocking that the average European cow receives more in government subsidies every day than half the world’s population earns in wages. Propped up by government subsidies, American and European farmers unload cheap goods on the world market at a cost often far below the price of production, leaving farmers in the developing world, not to mention the majority of American family farmers, unable to sell, much less compete.

http://www.consciouschoice.com/2007/03/thoughtforfood0703.html

US 'dumping unsold GM food on Africa'

Two leading international environment and development groups accused the US yesterday of manipulating the southern African food crisis to benefit their GM food interests and of using the UN to distribute domestic food surpluses which could not otherwise find a market.

In response to criticism by senior US officials that they have been playing with people's lives by encouraging countries to resist GM food sent as aid, Greenpeace and Actionaid also accused the US government's overseas aid body of offering only GM food when conventional foods were available.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2002/oct/07/gm.famine

Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Farm Subsidies


Published: November 9, 2005
RALSTON, Iowa, Nov. 4 - As Iowa finishes harvesting its second-largest corn crop in history, Roger Fray is racing to cope with the most visible challenge arising from the United States' ballooning farm subsidy program: the mega-corn pile.

Soaring more than 60 feet high and spreading a football field wide, the mound of corn behind the headquarters of West Central Cooperative here resembles a little yellow ski hill. "There is no engineering class that teaches you how to cover a pile like this," Mr. Fray, the company's executive vice president for grain marketing, said from the adjacent road. "This is country creativity."

Trucks wait to unload corn at elevators in Templeton, Iowa. The current system encourages the production of more than the country can use.

At 2.7 million bushels, the giant pile illustrates the explosive growth in corn production by American farmers in recent years, which this year is estimated to reach a nationwide total of at least 10.9 billion bushels, second only to last year's 11.8 billion bushels.

http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/articles/09harvest.html

[GliderGuider]

7. Deleted

[Igel]

3. Going to store in a few minutes.

That's where my precinct has wisely chosen to caucus--inside a grocery store, between the in-store Churches' Fried Chicken and the wall o' fruit in the produce section.

I must remember to buy some Kenyan tea before the prices go up.