By Henry Neondo
Kenyan Journalist

NAIROBI, Kenya (DTN) -- Agnes Sua stares at her stunted and wilted maize crop, bewildered and wondering what next to do.

Keeping true to practices of the Bantu-speaking Africans, Agnes has planted maize year after year. But lack of rain -- and rising heat due to climate change -- has frustrated her efforts.

The Kamba tribe of Kitui County in eastern Kenya, to which Agnes belongs, is coming to expect that. The area now gets less than 12 inches of rain a year and gets that only half the time. The Kenyan government says that has led to chronic food insecurity for the tribe.

Sua is once again poised to shamefully depend on the state and charity for food relief.

But Ruth Ntheeu, Agnes's village-mate, is trying to change the pattern. "I learnt bitter lessons in the recent past when I only depended on growing maize," she says.

Ntheeu is one of the farmers who took to heart advice from development agencies such as the Revitalization of Indigenous Initiatives for Community Development (RINCOD), a local NGO that urges farmers to plant crops native to the area rather than maize.

Ntheeu recently earned 20,000 Kenya shillings (USD$240) from the sale of 14,000 cassava cuttings at a time when her neighbors have little to smile about.

Her evergreen 15-acre cassava farm looks like a pool of water in of a desert.

"We are increasing our sensitization of farmers on climate change issues and the need to shift to alternative crops like cassava, sorghum, cow peas and pigeon peas," says Cecilia Kibe, the executive director of RINCOD.

Kibe says Bantu people have almost lost touch with their traditional farming systems, which included those crops. During 100 years of British colonialism, the Bantu adopted western farming systems -- hinged on high-valued crops like maize, Irish potatoes, cabbages and kales that require water and are dependent on use of fertilizers.

Bantu farmers, including those who migrated to semi-arid areas, have come to rely on maize as a main food source. "Every planting season, farmers like Agnes buy maize seeds and fertilizer, only to be disappointed by stunted crops that yield nothing at the end," says Kibe.

Martha Gitau, area RINCOD project coordinator, adds that agricultural production keeps declining, despite introduction of technologies that aim to boost yields of high-valued crops in such semi-arid areas. These technologies require additional inputs, which translate to high capital investment. Fertilizer, for example, retails at $30 per 50Kg bag. "But few farmers, 50% of who live on less than a dollar a day, can afford this," she says.

So, groups like RINCOD encourage farmers to shift back to growing traditional crops in the face of weather changes.

But it is hard to convince farmer like Sua to break old habits, even those that lead to hunger.

(ES)

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