Corruption, NOT Drought, Is Worst Enemy to Our Farmers

By Koigi Wamwere

The subsidy the government gave to millers and maize importers to lower the price of unga from Sh140 to Sh90 for a two-kilo packet is not adequate to end the problem of rising food prices.

To begin with, the subsidy should have come with subsidies for other essential commodities such as wheat, cooking fat, bread and milk, as well as rent and school fees.

To be meaningful, food subsidies should go hand-in-hand with price controls, which make sure prices remain low and affordable for all Kenyans, especially those who earn little.

But there are those who argue that price controls are communistic, and should not be allowed in a free market economy. Yet I remember price controls were most effectively enforced by the colonial government that introduced capitalism in this country. Price controls are not incompatible with capitalism with a human face.

The truth is that except for most cruel governments, since the French Queen Marie Antoinette asked why peasants could not eat cake if there was no bread and the subsequent French Revolution, most governments will prefer price controls to anarchy, because without them, the majority that cannot afford food and other essentials will not hesitate to embrace a revolution rather than die of hunger. Given how important food is, how our farmers have not been able to grow enough and how persistent lack of enough food has been for the poor, such a subsidy should be permanent and not something temporarily we use to please voters during an election period.

In addition, food subsidies should also be considered together with farming necessities that make growing more food easier and increase production. That can easily bring down the prices.

There is little doubt that when there is more food, it gets cheaper and when scarce, it becomes more expensive. So to bring down prices of food, its supply must be increased through more efficient agriculture.

As it is now, Kenyans cannot increase food production because farmers cannot afford seeds, fertiliser, herbicides and to pay for professional advice increase their harvest. But on the other side, low food prices also discourage farmers from farming. Yet we know unless prices encourage farmers to grow food, the country will be forced to depend on imports, which will end up being more expensive. Unfortunately, if food imports are too cheap, say because they are subsidised, they risk destroying our agricultural sector, without which we cannot grow enough food or be self-reliant. The other reason why food security will not be easily achieved is because powerful leaders and civil servants take grain from strategic grain reserve and sell it to other countries at a higher price.

Because of food shortage caused by drought and inadequate rainfall, the solution to it relies on the Biblical economics of Joseph, when grains from good harvests are stored and used to feed the nation during the lean years of drought. When leaders of a nation refuse to plan food production, its storage and distribution during the hard times, lack of food is inevitable.

In deed, lack of planning of our economy and agriculture is the biggest hindrance to growth in this country. Yet we refuse to address it because we are too busy stealing from our economy that we should otherwise have been very busy developing.

Ultimately, the main reason why we have food shortage is corruption, which disposes maize reserve, wheat and other grains, whose purpose is to feed the nation during the hard times. Corruption is infact a greater cause of famine than drought. Notwithstanding that we all know how dangerous corruption is, it continues to envelop all our food related projects.

For instance, in the 70s, Kenya set up Ken-Ren Chemical And Fertiliser Company. Although we continue to pay for it to date, it never produced any fertiliser. This factory did not take off because it was a project meant to enrich those who built it.

Before the fertiliser factory, we had a Guaranteed Minimum Returns project, which encouraged farmers to continue growing food and other crops because, even when there was drought, farmers always got a minimum return that allowed them to always go back to farming. Unfortunately, this fertiliser project was killed by corruption, in instances where briefcase farmers were paid for crops they never grew anywhere.

Right now, there is an irrigation scheme project called Galana Kulaku that is taking billions of shillings without producing maize to its projected estimates.

Unless we eliminate bad leadership and corruption, and restore permanent price controls that will prevent anyone from making billions out of hungry people, Kenyans will never be liberated from food insecurity.