Food rights

Hunger now more than ever seems to result from structural inefficiencies leading to limited access to food, climate change, poverty, and inequalities. Few individuals who dictate technologies, choices, quality, and quantities in food systems and prices undermine progression.

Adequate food, as envisioned in the right, should be achieved not only in quantity but also in quality. There is an unrivalled need to sustainably produce adequate quantities of food that is safe and nutritious for everyone at all times.

What Ails Kenya’s Food System? A Policy Perspective

Agroecology has established itself as a concept opposed to industrial agriculture - also because it always takes society and power structures into account: It provides the framework for equal rights for women in agriculture.

Agriculture is one of the most hazardous occupations in Kenya. Farmers are exposed to many toxic chemicals such as pesticides. While pesticides are designed to be used for pests, they have ingredients that are highly toxic to human health. 

The debate on the use of pesticides in Kenya is one that clearly illustrates the dilemma. Under the government’s watch, the industry has been pushing for increased pesticide use, despite rising user and consumer safety concerns. International companies generate less than 6 percent of global pesticide sales in Africa, making the continent a key market for profitable trade. 

This edition was compiled by Heinrich Böll Foundation’s North Africa and the Transform Africa project. It is dedicated to the emerging conversation of alternative approaches that challenge the historical bias towards the industrialisation of agriculture and the food system as the main strategy to address food insecurity while preparing for a +2°C world.    

Agriculture accounts for about 24% of Kenya’s GDP with an estimated 75% of the population working in the sector either directly or indirectly. As an agricultural economy and while promoting mainly conventional agriculture, Kenya’s demand for pesticides is relatively high and steadily increasing. In 2018 Kenya imported 17,803 tonnes valued at 128 Mill $. These pesticides are an assortment of insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, fumigants, rodenticides, growth regulators, defoliators, proteins, surfactants and wetting agents. Of the total pesticide imports, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides account for about 87% in terms of volume and 88% of the total cost of pesticide imports.