Pesticide use not sustainable for Kenya Article 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.
The latest Issue of Perspectives is out! New Publication 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.
Pesticides in Kenya: What’s at stake? Article 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.
#ToxicBusiness Twitter Chat Article Join us on Twitter (see poster for details) using #ToxicBusiness as we call on the Government to immediately withdraw pesticides containing active ingredients that are toxic to human health and the environment, and that threaten food security and food safety in the country.
Challenges in implementing a Right to Food framework in Kenya Article The article raises key questions that are necessary for setting the context for a Right to Food framework in Kenya. What is food security? Is food security the same as the Right to Food? When a country speaks of having achieved the Right to Food, who is at the centre of its considerations? How is the political economy connected to the realisation of the Right to Food? In his analysis, Philip Kilonzo argues that too much emphasis is placed on agricultural commodities trading from Kenya into global markets and that too little, disjointed and problematic attention has been given to local food needs and livelihoods. This makes the Right to Food in Kenya at best, words in a constitution and at worst, almost impossible to achieve.
How Kenya’s budget policies fail food, nutrition security Opinion Food security is not a problem of production. It is a problem of access and distribution; and, the power imbalance between who is able to do just that — access and distribute. Nothing makes this clearer than waking up to the news of hunger-related deaths in Turkana. There is food in Kenya, so why are the people of Turkana facing starvation?
Dream weavers: “Kenya is food secure.” There are two stories being told about food security. One story says we are food secure and the other says we are not. The stories are being told – and written – by various people with different intentions. There are those who weave dreams, where fiction reigns and happy endings preside. Then there are those who tell it like it is.
The Open Cultivation of Bt-Maize: Questions We Should Be Asking In February, Kenya edged closer to commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) crops after the National Biosafety Authority (NBA) approved open-air field trials of Bt-maize. If the new trials prove successful, it is likely that authorities will allow commercial cultivation. Consumers have been uninformed about their consumption of genetically engineered foods in the past and the regulating bodies that are supposed to protect our right to information fail to do so. We should ask ourselves, do we support or do we disagree with open-field testing and the move towards lifting the ban on producing genetically modified food in Kenya?
Save our Soils Healthy soils are crucial to human nutrition and the fight against hunger. But worldwide 24 billion tons of fertile soil is lost annually. Barbara Unmüßig calls attention to the growing threat to one of Earth’s most important resources. The United Nations has declared 2015 to be the International Year of Soils, and April 19-23 marks this year’s Global Soil Week. Such events, though not exactly glamorous, do not receive nearly the amount of attention they deserve.
Losing Ground We are using the world’s soils as if they were inexhaustible, continually withdrawing from an account, but never paying in. At the start of the International Year of Soils 2015, the Soil Atlas - Facts and Figures about Earth, Land and Fields – demonstrate why the protection of soil is important to us all.
