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.
Cha Kula is a bi-annual publication that gives prominence to food as a political issue in Kenya. It calls into question the power dynamics that dominate our food system, which determines who eats, what they eat and who goes hungry.
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.
This paper was produced in collaboration with the Heinrich Boell Berlin Office and African offices in Nairobi, Abuja, and South Africa.
The Route to Food Initiative, a program component of the Heinrich Boell Foundation, has launched a special edition of the Chakula Magazine, a graphic novel entitled “The Blind Spot.”
The Blind Spot brings to life the ways in which politics plays out in Kenya’s food system in the form of a visually compelling political drama set in a fictional future county called Kajibora. The main protagonist, Sifa, is a passionate young professor from the city who travels back to her hometown of Kajibora after the death of her grandfather, a renowned politician and leader of a famous peasant revolution. Upon her return, Sifa discovers that the post-revolutionary county is being taken over by a multinational industrial agribusiness company.
The Route to Food Initiative (RTFI) sought to assess the current situation in regard to the perception of Kenyans about GMOs. RTFI, contracted a research firm, Infotrak Research and Consulting to undertake the research. Over 8000 respondents from all counties in Kenya were contacted for this survey. Quantitative data was collected through Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI), targeting the Kenyan adult population across all the regions. The data was then systematically analysed. Key issues of focus included level of awareness, willingness to consume and grow GMOs, and access to information on GMOs. These variables were analysed against various demographic aspects of the respondents.
As Kenya enters a new political season, it is critical that all political leaders include the food agenda in their manifestos and explicitly state their proposed solutions to the country's food and nutrition insecurity.
The Food Manifesto presents insights gathered from various stakeholders on the state of food insecurity and progress toward achieving the Right to Adequate Food for All in Kenya. This will be a helpful guide for political parties as they draft their manifestos.
It is possible to create sustainable, just and healthy food systems. For this to happen, it is key to strengthen political structures that truly focus on the right to food, on healthy nutrition, and on protecting biodiversity and the climate.
The publication Meat Atlas sheds light on the impacts of meat and dairy production, and aims to catalyse the debate over the need for better, safer and more sustainable food and farming.
In view of the renaissance that fertilizer subsidies are experiencing in many tropical and subtropical countries, this study provides an overview of the economic and ecological barriers and of the potential for using mineral fertilizers in such regions.
The idea of growth as the way to end poverty and escape economic and financial crisis remains largely undisputed and is currently reflected in the concept of the green economy. But not everything that is “green” and efficient is also environmentally sustainable and socially equitable. This essay outlines a policy of less, of wealth in moderation, to enable the Earth’s resources to make a life of dignity and without need possible for all.
Although the world's population has reached seven billion people, there is sufficient food in the world to feed the global population. Still about 1 billion are undernourished. How can we feed the world? And what role do environmental issues in agriculture play?
The 2007–2008 world food price crisis caused political and economical instability and social unrest in both poor and developed nations. This was only the latest example for a functioning food system being an indispensable pillar of a stable economy and a society capable of reproducing itself. A new study outlines steps how the intergovernmental Committee on World Food Security could be expanded towards a politically relevant international steering committee.
The study analysed the irrigation expansion strategy as a measure of increasing food security and securing livelihoods in Kenya, as well as its role as a measure to climate change adaptation in relation to other measures e.g. selection of crop varietal suitability, environmental conservation through afforestation, agro forestry and land use management and practices.
One of the biggest challenges predicted to affect food security in Africa is climate change. Due to the fact that 95 percent of Africa’s agriculture is rainfed, the already fragile agricultural sector is extremely vulnerable to climate change. Highertemperatures and an increased frequency of extreme weather events, such as droughts and floods, eventually lead to a decline in agricultural output.
A maize shortage has led to an unprecedented price hike in Kenya; government has declared the food insecurity a national disaster. Many Kenyans attribute food price inflation to mismanagement and corruption. But to what extent does it result from actual scarcity? Do food crop producers - many of them small farmers - profit from high food prices?
