Maize, beans farming obsession leaves Kitui fighting years of hunger

The National Drought Management Authority has classified the county as among those in the alarm stage of drought and famine.

In its January report, the authority listed the county among 13 others in need of urgent relief supplies.

Kitui county National Drought Management Authority coordinator Francis Koma said about 400,000 people are in dire need of humanitarian food aid across the county.

Kitui has a population of 1.13 million people.

But in the face of ravaging drought triggered by the consecutive seasons of dismal and erratic rains, agricultural experts, government authorities and non-governmental operatives see the food insecurity as somewhat self-inflicted.

Agriculture officials in Kitui opine that the worrying situation could be turned around if residents revert to growing traditional, drought-resistant and early maturing crops. 

The crops are mung beans, sorghum, pearl millet and cowpeas among others.

Agriculturalists blame the vicious cycle of famine that often visits the county on farmers' misplaced obsession with growing maize and beans which are exotic crops whose yields are never assured.

They have consequently embarked on a sensitisation campaign to urge farmers to minimise the growing of maize and beans in favour of more promising traditional and high value crops that would assure them of yields even when the rains are little.

Although it is not exactly known when and why the people of Kitui neglected the growing of traditional crops and switched to the maize and bean growing craze, agronomists agree it was a bad decision that must be reversed.

Eighty five-year-old Sivu Muvengei of Mbauni village in Mwingi Central, Kitui county said maize and beans growing was introduced in Ukambani in the 1950s soon after the Mau Mau uprising ebbed.

“Members of the Kamba communities who travelled to Kiringani in Kikuyu land and Embu brought back home combs of maize and small quantities of beans leading to “trial and error planting of maize and beans.

“However it was during the extremely heavy mafuriko rains of 1960 that people in Ukambani planted a lot of maize and beans leading to a bumper harvest. That set stage for the local farmers affinity to maize and beans farming,” said Muvengei at his farm on last Sunday.

Records show that  currently, 178,000 farmers are into maize and beans farming, even as they ignore early maturing and drought-resistant millet, sorghum, green grams and cowpeas crops that do well in Kitui.

The acting Kitui County chief officer for agriculture Francis Kitoo said  farmers had been brainwashed and misled that maize and beans were the best food for  civilised people. 

“I think that in order not to appear primitive and uncivilised, our people abandoned traditional foods for maize and beans to their detriment. It is much the reason why they are haunted by famine year in year out,” Kitoo said in a recent interview.

He said both maize and bean crops thrive in similar weather conditions and need a lot of moisture to grow to maturity as opposed to the hardy but largely neglected traditional crops.

 “The ecological zones ideal for maize and beans in the county are found within a radius of 15km from Kitui town with pockets in neighbouring Nzambani, Kyuluni, Migwani, Nguutani, Mutonguni and Matinyani areas,” Kitoo said.

He added that most of Kitui county was ideal for livestock keeping and drought-resistant crops that would mature early even in the wake of depressed rains. 

Kitui Agriculture CEC Emmanuel Kisangau said drought-tolerant crops ignored by the farmers hold the key to ending food insecurity.

“In every ward we have two to three extension officers explaining to the farmers the need to grow high-value and drought-tolerant crops," he said. 

He said the abandoned traditional crops were not only nutritious but fetch good money in the market.

Kisangau said it would be foolhardy for Kitui people to continue growing maize and beans, which need a lot of moisture while aware that rains are hardly adequate to support the crops to maturity.

Agronomist Dorcas Mumbe who works with the SNV Craft NGO said under her organisation, she has embarked on a campaign to impress farmers in Kitui to return to the growing of the more reliable traditional crops.

The 24-year-old says the campaign was not against the growing of maize and beans per se but the bottom line was to cushion the people of Kitui against hunger.

“We need to change our peoples' mindset. They need to understand that these neglected traditional crops can grow and give a very good harvest even with the little rains we have been receiving lately,” she said.

Farmers who have heeded calls by agricultural experts, narrated stories of not experiencing total crop failure even when the rains are scanty, erratic and short-lived.

Florence Mwange from Kauwi in Kitui West, said since she realised that growing of maize and beans was untenable and took up the growing of traditional food, she has not looked back.

“For years I have been a key maize and beans farmer but I realised that the yields from the crops started dropping in tandem with the reducing amount of rainfall in recent years,” Mwange said.

“I had to turn to climate adaptive crops like cowpeas, mung beans and sorghum,” she said. 

She said even with the little rains that have been experienced in Kitui, her mung beans harvest oscillates between 30 to 50 bags and a considerable amount of cowpeas and sorghum yield.

“The truth is that my family has remained food secure. I even get surplus yield which I sell. I adopted climate smart agriculture three years ago. I have never experienced crop failure because I use certified seeds,” Mwange said.

She said her family consumes the traditional crops without much ado. 

“We take porridge and ugali prepared from sorghum flour. Mung beans and cowpeas can also make a good stew which we eat with ugali. The food is always very delicious,” the farmer said.

Ngenesi Musyoka, 73, from Kaunguni, Mwingi Central said majority of Kitui residents were faced with hunger because they planted the wrong crops.

"We have had an obsession with planting exotic crops like maize and beans that do well only when the rain season is extremely good. We need to grow traditional food crops if we are to be food secure,” Musyoka said.

“It is time people went back to their roots. We should revert to growing drought resistant indigenous crops like millet, green grams, sorghum and cowpeas,” she added.

Munyoki Mwinzi of Kiemani village of Kyuso and Pastor Samuel  Kimwele of AIC Kaunguni church in Mwingi Central said they had chosen to grow traditional crops in order to ensure their families were food secure. 

The duo said for the more than four seasons that a serious drought has visited Kitui following depressed rains, food for their families has been the least of their worries.

Kitui County nutritionist Jackson Matheka said although people believe that eating maize and beans was trendy, eating foods prepared with millet, sorghum, cowpeas and green grams was just as nutritious.

Matheka said if a person ate a meal of maize and another consumed a meal prepared from millet or sorghum both of them will have consumed carbohydrates.

“As much as beans will give the body protein, green grams too give protein. Our people have been hoodwinked to think that maize and beans are more superior foods,” he said.

The nutritionist said it was time the people of Kitui changed their eating and dietary habits by embracing traditional food recipes from crops that do well in their area. “That way they will by some extend keep hunger out of Kitui,” he added.

 

 

 

-Edited by SKanyara