MUGA: In rural Kenya, fertilisers are a matter of life and death

When President Uhuru Kenyatta launched his Big 4 Agenda of legacy projects in 2017, at the forefront of these agenda items was Food Security.

The others were Affordable Housing, Manufacturing and Affordable Healthcare. But of them all, Food Security came first.

The central role of food security in this matrix of priorities was based on the demographic reality that Kenya is essentially a nation of small-scale farmers. About 70 per cent of our population live in rural areas and are dependent on farming for their livelihoods.

What this means in practice is that creating an environment that encourages agrarian prosperity – profitable farming – is the most direct way in which the government can hope to bring about national prosperity overall.

And as any Kenyan who has even the slightest experience of farm life will know, the key to profitable and sustainable farming is affordable fertiliser.

It is the availability and affordability of fertiliser that determines whether families will eat or go hungry; whether or not there will be money available for necessary repairs on the family home; whether children will walk to school in new shoes or walk to school on their bare feet.

One might go so far as to say that for many in rural Kenya, effective and affordable fertilisers are a matter of life and death.

When a family relies on the same plot of land, year in year out, to provide them with a living; ploughing that same field over and over again, the only way that such farming can be sustainable is through the use of scientifically-selected fertiliser.

This means that you must plan from the start for use of fertilisers specific to the soils and depending on the requirement of each specific crop (maize, potato, sugar cane, tea, coffee, etc).

This would be a challenge enough at the best of times. Right now, we find that there is a perfect storm of crises brewing, involving factors touching on Kenya’s food security, and with the potential to utterly devastate the small-scale Kenyan farmer in most parts of the country.

One crisis is a purely regional phenomenon: northern Kenya is in the grip of a major drought; the kind that has not been seen for decades. At the very least this places a demand for vast quantities of relief food for the victims of this drought.

Second is that there was the collapse of global logistics brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that paralysed international supply chains. China and other key manufacturing nations reduced their supply of various goods, while the demand in many cases remained.

Finally, there is the Russian invasion of Ukraine which seems set to give Kenyans a lesson in the fact that while globalisation has its undoubted benefits, it also has its setbacks.

Russia is the greatest exporter of fertiliser as well as one of the biggest producers of wheat. And Ukraine is one of the biggest exporters of corn (ie, maize) and wheat.

Hence do we see alarming headlines like the one recently published in Deutsche Welle online, "Up to 300 ships have been stopped by Russian forces from departing the Black Sea, leaving one of the key global trade routes for grain virtually blocked. The fertile region is known as 'the world's breadbasket'.”

Compounding things further, there is the sharp increase in the price of oil. This is also a direct result of the uncertainties resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What all this means is that it is going to be much more expensive to produce or buy basic cereals; and also, much more expensive to transport such food products.

It is in this context that last week there was an uproar across the nation as farmers vented their fury over the reported withdrawal of the pre-existing fertiliser subsidies.

Giving voice to the frustrations felt by farmers, the MP for Moiben, Silas Tiren, posed the question: “Why can’t the government set aside Sh15 billion for food security? Is there someone trying to sabotage farmers?”

Fertiliser prices in Kenya are expected to increase to more than Sh7,000 for a 50kg bag from Sh3,000 last year. While Kenya imports a large share of its fertiliser from Russia and China, disruption of shipments from Russia is expected following its invasion of Ukraine, and China already limits its exports for domestic reasons.

This situation is already severely hitting farmers in Kenya who account for close to 70 per cent of the population, and where approximately 50 per cent of such farmers have already announced that they might not plant (or significantly reduce their planting farming land size) this year because of this prohibitive cost of inputs. Some have reverted to the use of traditional manure in place of scientifically proven fertilisers.

In these circumstances, Kenya’s main fertiliser factory, CFAO AGRI LTD – the producer of Baraka Fertilizer – assumes immense significance as a producer of affordable quality fertiliser.

This company began as the Toyota Tsusho Fertilizer Africa Ltd, back in 2015, and began operations in 2016. In 2020, its name was changed to CFAO AGRI LTD. However, CFAO AGRI remains a group company of Toyota Tsusho, a Japanese company that is itself a part of the Japanese conglomerate, the Toyota Group.

The entry of CFAO AGRI into the Kenyan fertiliser market was a game-changer because for the first time there was a supplier of fertiliser that was actually producing and strongly promoting balanced nutrition fertilisers in Kenya, as opposed to focusing on the basic straight fertiliser (mainly DAP) import trade.

The company seeks to improve productivity by providing high-quality fertiliser at an affordable price. Since its inception, the plant has a production capacity of 150,000 MT/year, which accounts for more than 20 per cent of the consumption in Kenya. The company now employs approximately 60 permanent staff and 60 non-permanent staff.

The CFAO AGRI process begins with identifying specific farmers in a specific location; then conducting soil sampling and analysis; designing the best product in terms of formulation and application rate; and only then producing the appropriate fertiliser at its state-of-the-art facility in Eldoret.

Their portfolio of products includes fertilisers specifically designed to support the growth of each specific crop, mainly maize, potato, horticulture, sugar cane, tea, coffee, rice and beans.

For all these, the use of Baraka Fertilizer has been proved to lead to significantly improved yields and greater income for farmers.

And CFAO AGRI’s product, Baraka Fertilizer, of which Baraka Msingi Planting currently sells at approximately Sh5,000 for a 50 kg bag, is much cheaper than the imported alternatives, especially factoring in the higher quality and therefore yields it can generate for the farmers.

Peter Munya, the Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, has said that his ministry requires at least Sh31.8 billion to subsidise farmers against the expected spike in fertiliser prices.

The combination of lower cost yet high quality of Baraka Fertilizer can contribute positively to reducing the strain on government’s budget and promote food security. The increased production of fertiliser in the Eldoret plant will also contribute to local jobs and reducing imports.

What all this amounts to is that from the moment that President Uhuru Kenyatta announced Food Security as one of his top legacy priorities, the government should have moved swiftly to facilitate either the expansion of the Eldoret factory, or the establishment of yet more factories.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a wake-up call: for Kenya, food security, as much as agrarian prosperity, begins with having our own internal capacity to produce cost-effective yet quality fertiliser.