A news item last week, “Makueni set to become an oil seed production centre” may have escaped attention of many, but for me the news was laden with hope that focused implementation of practical ideas and plans can actually turnaround agriculture and food security in Kenya.
The Makueni target oilseed crop is sunflower for processing into cooking oil with by-products going into animal feeds. The implementing partners are the cooking oil company Bidco, Land O’Lakes which is a renowned animal feeds firm from USA, and Safaricom which will support apps for farmer’s credit and inputs.
This project is a win-win business model with a guaranteed market and credit support for farmers. I firmly believe it will succeed because the Makueni Governor, Prof Kibutha Kibwana, mostly delivers on his county development plans.
My interest in this subject is animal feeds, as I am a dairy farmer in Mathira, Nyeri County where my son also does pork farming.
We use plenty of animal feeds which use soya, sunflower, and cotton by-products from oilseed processing into cooking oil. Quality and affordable animal feeds are essential for the success of livestock (dairy, pork, poultry, and fish) industry, a critical food security component.
The irony is that currently these oilseeds are mostly imported from our neighbours Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, making our entire livestock industry very dependent on these countries. Maize is also a critical input for cooking oil and animal feed making, with the animal feed processors occasionally importing the grain from our neighbours, sometimes at lower prices than locally produced maize.
The last time I drove across Tanzania through Arusha, Babati, Dodoma, Siginda, Shinyanga, and Mwanza, I was fascinated by the sheer bounty of maize, sunflower, and cotton crops along this route. The baffling question in my mind was, when and where did Tanzania (and Uganda) overtake Kenya in agricultural production. We definitely have sufficient capacity to grow all these oilseed crops (and maize) for own use and even for exports.
Partnerships between the government (both national and counties) and private investors should be mobilised to mainstream oilseed crops farming and value addition through processing into cooking oil and animal feeds .
The demand is definitely there, and capacity to grow the crops is also essentially there. Kenya can easily become self sufficient in cooking oil and animal feeds supply.
As a dairy farmer, I feel encouraged that the Makueni country has taken the challenge to pioneer in sunflower farming. Other counties can replicate the Bidco model and pioneer in large scale soya beans farming. For national food security, oilseed crops should be accorded the same focus and priority currently given to maize and sugar.
Oilseed crops are clearly an economic integrator — agricultural jobs, cooking oil manufacturing, animal feeds for livestock, food security, and of course savings on foreign exchange spent on cooking oil and animal feeds imports
Recently the government has embarked on a raft of regulations and rules for various areas of agriculture including food crops and the dairy sector. The rules should be practical and with the prime objective of empowering the farmer with modern methods, organised markets, protection from predatory middlemen, and should include guidelines for “indicative” producer prices.
The regulations should not be “cut and paste” rules from other parts of the world which have no semblance to Kenya’s opportunities and challenges. The rules should also systematically and gradually improve farming and produce standards to permit Kenya to easily participate in export markets.
Produce should be protected from unfairly priced imports. The recent drop in milk producer prices is a hurtful experience for dairy farmers who, correctly or incorrectly, believe that it is cheap milk imports from Uganda that are flooding the market.
The same story can be replicated with imports of eggs from Uganda. It is indeed a futile and costly effort by farmers to grow local capacity for food security, only to encounter a flood of imports from neighbouring countries.
In conclusion, let us replicate the Makueni oilseed initiative in other areas as a perfect model for agriculture/manufacturing value chain integration for food security, jobs, and trade.
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