African solutions lie within.

One of the greatest threats to Africa presently is the threat of food insecurity. Largely accredited to worsening climatic situation and government impotence and which has turned the basket of the world into a beggar of aid.

In my take I consider the great inability of Africa to feed its populations to a great extent is because of the great shift to cash crop farming and neglect of food production to a few. Countries as fertile as Kenya have to import maze in excess to feed its population which should not be the case.

The food system is set out that there are a few designated maize farmers especially in the plush Kitale and Trans Nzoia district who virtually feed the whole nation. They are supposed to cultivate and deliver maize to the silos which are then stored too feed the nation annually. Then there are bulk grain dealers who import maize and store them and later sell to the government and companies for the nation to be fed.

This system has been largely accepted and unquestioned until recently with constant food shortages and skyrocketing inflation. Accusations of lack of capacity and hoarding have been changed and this only served to worsen the situation when the price practically skyrocketed to a record high of 0ver a hundred shillings for two kilograms of maize floor in the rural area.

Like I said at the start African solutions can only come from within. I think the food crisis gives a chance to review the food production process. Whereas we need the government to do its worked and feed its population we must start taking the true responsibility for feeding themselves. We cannot abandon the duty to feed ourselves to the government or private farmers and commercial grain handlers.

The most important step to ensure food security is thus the revitalization of subsistence farming! In as much as all we hear is that we need government intervention or aid, the truth is that to ensure food security we must be able to feed ourselves as individuals.

Subsistence farming which is dying to the more lucrative and attractive commercial farming is the key to feeding our population as all the proletariat wants is to eat and if he can feed himself then there is food security.

Most issues arising in the crisis can be solved by this imperatively easy way. The issue of storage for large grain handlers and the complaint that they lack the capacity will not be witnessed in small scale subsistence farming. The unscrupulous hoarding will neither be the case nor the transport cost passed on to the consumer.

All we need is for government to devolve mini silos to small villages and encourage the ancient art of building small scale storages. The government should cut cost and give incentives to small scale millers especially posho-millers or run posho mills in local centers or towns where they can be accessed easily and cheaply. The government should employ and deport extension officers and make agriculture more robust in villages and rural towns where the population can be encouraged to use every scrap of land at their disposal to grow food and feed Africa. Then most importantly the governments must cease leasing our land to other countries to grow their own subsistence food here we do not eat royalties or the tax they levy on the Global powers and multinational corporations!

The civil society and good will ambassadors should push for a national and continental drive to feed yourself which will encourage subsistence farming. The school curriculum must stop bedeviling small scale farming as insignificant economic activity that must be discarded for commercial farming for the right philosophy to be passed to the young generations

We do not disqualify the commercial dealers as they are an important chain in the food security complex. They will come in hand for the transfer of food to less fertile areas and town who cannot feed themselves. Areas that are agriculturally challenged will be serviced by these commercial entries and the government. And looking at the whole continent especially sub Sahara such areas are minimal. The continent then will be able to feed its people.

And the question arises, what if we all grow food? Then this underscores my lifelong theses that African solutions are within. We will have the greatest opportunity to rediscover barter, exchanging value for value and not value for paper!