Improving small holder food production

October 16 is the United Nation’s World Food Day. It is a day set aside for
us all to reflect on the fate of the 950 million men, women and
children worldwide that, according to UN statistics, go to sleep
hungry.





The vast majority of the hungry, obviously are the world’s poor. Rarely would anyone with money in their pockets lack food. Unfortunately, the majority of the world’s poor and hungry live in Africa. Why has Africa not able to meet its food needs despite years of investing in the agricultural sector? There are as many reasons as
there are answers and solutions.

However, there are a few areas I
would like to highlight that would make a big difference if they
received adequate attention. Post harvest loss - the big hole that food meant for the hungry falls
into - is top of my list. Farm produce rotting in the fields is a very
common scenario in Africa. Due to poor infrastructure, small-holder
farmers are unable to get produce to the market or in times of abundance,
they flood the market and prices drop drastically.

The good harvest becomes a curse. Early in the year, we saw farmers in Kenya pouring away their milk when the
production outweighed the capacity of the industry to absorb it. This
must have been a very painful exercise for them – it was literary
pouring much-needed money down the drain. Similarly in Tanzania, we are just coming out of the orange season.
If you travel in the orange-growing areas, the fruits are rotting on
the farms and in the markets. On the other hand, in the supermarkets, a
box of orange juice, most probably imported, fetches a tidy sum.
Why didn’t the Kenyan farmers make cheese and yoghurt? Why aren’t
their Tanzanian counterparts making juices and jams? Is it lack of
capital, knowledge, processing equipment, confidence by the farmers or
even the need for a pioneer to set an example for the farmers? It is a combination
of all these and other factors.



The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is working
with small-holder farmers to promote simple technologies for processing
crops into valuable and marketable products to avoid such post-harvest
losses and improve incomes. The institute has had immense success in commercialising cassava by
promoting the production of high quality cassava flour and starch. The
flour has a wide range of uses at home and in the bakery industries to
make cakes, bread, biscuits and other products either on its own or
mixed with wheat flour. The starch has diverse uses in the brewery,
pharmaceutical, textile, paper, plywood and food industries. The old crop of Africa is hardy and performs relatively well in
drought conditions. By using the cassava alternatives, many African countries would save
millions of US dollars by reducing importation of wheat and starch.
At the same time it would create income for many in the value chain:
farmers, transporters, machine fabricators and small scale processors.
It would also create employment in the rural areas, reducing rural to
urban migration.


IITA is using the same approach for soybean, banana and cowpea and the
same can be extended to many other crops grown by African farmers. The farmers can also avoid the glut in the market by changing the
timing of their harvest to coincide with low season when the demand
and prices are high. A study by IITA in Uganda - the second largest producer and consumer
of bananas in the world - showed that with better timing, farmers can
harvest their banana ‘off season’ when prices are better, avoiding the
huge price fluctuations and post-harvest losses experienced during
high production season. According to the research, though the bunches harvested off-season
were relatively lighter by 25 per cent compared to those harvested in peak
season, their price was up to 50 per cent higher. Thus they were more profitable.





Most farming in Africa is still traditional - manual with minimal use
of fertilizers and adoption of high-yielding improved varieties and
other modern farming practices. A USAID-funded study carried out by IITA in Uganda showed that only five per cent
of farmers use fertilizer on their bananas yet its moderate use would
easily double the crop’s yield. For example, yields doubled from 10
to 20 tonnes per hectare per year in Central Uganda with modest
fertilizer application.





The farmers in the study said that they did not use fertilizers
because they are expensive and not available in affordable packs. They also cited
the lack of access to credit facilities, limited knowledge of
fertilizer use, and misinformation about fertilizers’ negative effect
on soil quality and on the taste of the bananas.





However, Piet van Asten, a scientist with IITA and one of the researchers,
said fertilizer use becomes more profitable when it is specific to a
crop and a region, and specifically targets only those nutrients that
are most deficient. He said unfortunately most farmers follow blanket
fertilizer recommendations which can be very inefficient and
expensive.





Another IITA research project in Uganda found that farmers could get more
income from growing coffee and bananas together rather than growing either
crop alone. It showed that farmers who had intercropped bananas with
coffee increased yield. This is despite a
reduction in the number of coffee plants to make room for the banana.

To fight hunger and its evil twin sister, poverty, efforts to increase
the production of Africa’s small-holder farmers must be redoubled. The technologies
that enable them to do this must be made available to them with all
the necessary support to implement them.
 Under this year's theme, United Against Hunger, I salute the men and
women working tirelessly to end hunger. Let the struggle continue
because it is possible!





* Catherine Njuguna is c
orporate communication officer for Eastern and southern Africa

,
IITA-Tanzania

. The article reflects the writer’s own views.