Food Security

This was one of the alarming insights shared during an interview with experts behind the launch of the Soil Atlas of Kenya, later featured in the Seeds of Gold section of the Nation Media Group. The discussion with Harun Warui examined the country's urgent soil health issues, their implications for food security, and the solutions needed to restore degraded lands.

At the Bayer Annual Stockholders Meeting this week, Harun Warui, Lead Coordinator for Agroecology and Food Rights at the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Nairobi, on behalf of the Coordination Against Bayer Dangers questioned Bayer’s vision for agriculture to countries in Global South.

The Heinrich Boell Foundation (hbf) today unveiled the Soil Atlas – Kenya Edition, a publication that presents critical facts and figures about soil, a vital resource that impacts food and nutritional security.

The overuse of artificial fertilisers harms soils, nitrogen fertilisers contribute to climate change and pesticides kill beneficial organisms. Despite this, companies profit from these products and influence governments, blocking essential environmental policies.

The future of agriculture is at stake as soil health continues to degrade. Practices like monoculture, plowing, and overuse of chemical inputs have depleted soil nutrients and structure, prompting farmers to explore alternative soil management strategies. While upscaling these solutions shows promise, policy, and financial support remain insufficient.

Soils are vital to our survival. They store greenhouse gases and water and are home to at least a quarter of all living creatures on earth.  In Kenya over 40% of soils are affected by land degradation, high proportions are acidic and saline.

Soil to plate: Kenya's mandatory fortification policy aims to tackle hidden hunger, but true nutritional security lies in restoring soil health and embracing diverse diets for lasting solutions.

Kenya's worsening soil degradation poses a serious threat to its agricultural future. Redefining soil health through policies that support site-specific solutions is essential for meaningful change in soil management.

Kenya's diverse soils face interconnected challenges that require tailored solutions for sustainable productivity. Simply increasing the use of synthetic fertilisers is not enough.

  Soil degradation poses a global crisis as it jeopardises food security, livelihoods, and ecosystem health. The situation is worse in East Africa, where over 40 percent of soils are degraded, threatening the region’s agricultural foundation and resilience.

Nairobi, Kenya, December 9, 2024 - The Route to Food Initiative (RTFI), a programme of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Kenya, is excited to announce the launch of Kenya’s first-ever Farmers Resource Guide on alternatives to Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs), a groundbreaking tool designed to promote sustainable and pesticide-free farming practices. This guide is by framers for farmers, offering practical knowledge and tools to help farmers at all experience levels to grow healthy, nutritious food while safeguarding their health, the environment, and future generations.

Regulating pesticide registration and labelling is not enough; close monitoring on the ground is critical. In Kenya, this is where the food safety chain begins to break.

As digital agricultural platforms like Digifarm and Azure Farmbeats expand across Africa, there’s a growing need to examine the broader implications. These platforms, while promising increased yields and efficiency, may also further entrench corporate interests in agriculture, raising questions about the true beneficiaries of this digital revolution. 

Inspired by the Netflix documentary Rotten, this issue of Cha Kula by the Route to Food Initiative, highlights the absurdities in our food systems in Kenya, both historically and in the contemporary moment. 

Our Policy Brief provides recommendations on fossil fuel-based and ‘green’ fertilizer production and use in Africa.

This background paper Rethinking Agriculture: Soil Health for Sustainable Farming in Africa explores the importance of soil health and the need to a shift away from sole reliance on synthetic fertilizers remains an imperative discourse for sustainable agriculture in Africa.

Pesticides have not only become a prominent concern globally but in Kenya today. Proponents of the pesticides argue that they are vital in pest and disease control in food systems, while the antagonists raise alarm about the potential toxicity of these agrochemicals to human health and the environment. The point of contention is the toxic nature of certain pesticides sold in Kenya but been banned in their countries of origin. According to a 2023 Route to Food Report, 76% of the total volume of pesticides used in Kenya are categorized as highly hazardous and 44% of these pesticides are banned in the European Union.

During the colonial era in Kenya, the agricultural sector was overseen by a retrogressive and racist colonial agrarian policy. It split into two main structures that saw the best arable land reserved for European ownership (referred to as the White Highlands) that concentrated on producing cash crops like coffee, tea and improved livestock mainly to be exported as commodities in short supply in Europe.

The report “Toxic Business; Highly Hazardous Pesticides in Kenya” presents analyses on actual data of pesticides used in 2020 in Kenya. It shows that immediate action is necessary to protect human health, the environment, and the right to healthy food in Kenya. Please see an overview of the reports content and recommendations. 

The Route to Food Initiative (RTFI) a programme of the Heinrich Böll Foundation has released the first ever report based on empirical data on Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) in Kenya.