Rank: Veteran Joined: 11/15/2012 Posts: 1,110
|
Rankaz13 wrote:newfarer wrote:InnovateGuy wrote:newfarer wrote:wazuans today I have covered a long stretch of mombasa highway.all I saw was a massive crop failure and despair.
northern kenya is also facing the same predicament.
brace yourselves for tough times since the next harvest will only come in august if we are Lucky to get enough rains.
I just wonder when we will ever come out of this perennial shame.
and by the way I feel that the much maligned quail farming could be part of the solution. Care to explain?
Our farmers practice rain-fed agriculture. There lies the problem as well as the solution. quails take 5 weeks to mature.they also take small space to rear. they need little water and capital. instead of kenyans taking the venture as a way to get rich quickly,they should consider it as a an easy food source. why would anyone die of hunger when there are quails at his backyard? Same goes for rabbits too. If nothing else, at least they introduced alternative protein sources to us. I read of a Nyeri farmer making money from guinea pigs. I dunno whether these are edible too. These ideas won't sell.
Subsistence farmers grow foods to sustain their food requirements, and sell any surplus. Maize, for example, is a very popular food within the country because the farmer can harvest, have some of it, and store the rest for domestic consumption till the next season. I
Yes, diversification of our food sources could be part of the much-needed solution. However, every culture has food habits. For example, locusts are acceptable as food in some parts of the country. However, other parts of this great nation would not entertain such an idea - even remotely. Faced with this challenge, we can only encourage a shift from rain-fed agriculture to the use of irrigation, without necessarily changing what we eat. If it's not possible for each subsistence farmer to make that shift, then, invest in large-scale production, which will lower the cost of production. If this is done well, the price of unga (to the end user) should be lower than the cost of producing the maize and milling it to get the unga.
My 2 cents. Live Full Die Empty - Les Brown.
|