Dr. Martin Evans, Chairman of FARM-Africa displays a cheque given by NFU

Food security is a great challenge and a major concern for all races around the world. Many families in Sub-Saharan Africa are going hungry day-in day-out with one or no meals at all.

The National Farmers Union of United Kingdom (UK), a representative body for UK farmers, has purposed to contribute to changing this scenario for the good of smallholder farmers in East Africa. During a recent awards dinner in London the National Farmers Union (NFU) extended a gesture of goodwill by handing over a cheque worth £203,000 to Dr Martin Evans, the Chairman of FARM-Africa, to assist smallholder farmers in East Africa improve their food security. In 2008, the Africa 100 Appeal was launched through a partnership between FARM-Africa and the NFU (see earlier news release this year).

The donation is earmarked to support a cassava project that will uplift livelihoods of poor smallholder farmers in Ugenya and Migori Districts in Western Kenya. To kick start the implementation of the project, FARM-Africa organised a one day inception meeting in Kisumu City on 11th November 2009 to launch the project. The meeting brought together strategic partners who included representatives of NGOs, government, private sector (micro-credit banks), research institutes and the farmer associations.

Officially opening the workshop, the Provincial Director of Agriculture noted that insufficient maize is produced and therefore cannot be entirely relied upon. He expressed the government’s commitment and support to the cassava project and emphasized the government’s involvement as a team player to ensure its core function for self-sufficiency in food production is achieved.

Dr. Ralph Roothaert (2nd left) with Mr. Kasim Were (3rd left) briefing members of the press on the cassava project at the Kisumu Hotel

Dr. Ralph Roothaert, from FARM-Africa, said that this project is the first in the process of scaling-up successful models of technologies tested under farmer conditions. He told the stakeholders that the investment will impact on larger groups of farmers in the two districts and aims to shift their farming practices from subsistence to commercial farming. “Living in l
a global economy, farmers cannot afford to stay producing food just for their own consumption, but need to earn an income”, said Dr. Ralph. He further said that the project will incorporate gender equity as a major component where women who form 80 percent of agricultural labour will play a key role as drivers of agricultural innovations. With the introduction of the new varieties of cassava, approximately 3825 households with around 23,000 family members will largely reap the benefits and be able to enjoy 3 meals a day.

Dr. Ralph said that a tendering process is soon to be put in place to enter into contracts for construction of two cassava processing factories, one in each of the districts to be operated by local entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs will have the trust and support of the community.

The project will provide training to the managers of the factories. The factories will produce dried cassava chips and high quality cassava flour. The factories will have a capacity of 10 tonnes of fresh cassava per day with every 3 tonnes producing 1 tonne of cassava flour. Plans are underway to have the factories process more than 20,000 tonnes in a year.

The Community Mobilisation Against Decertification (C-MAD) will start seed multiplication plots within the communities these will provide farmers with disease free, drought tolerant and disease resistant planting materials on credit. The very poor among them will be given vouchers to buy materials from the C-MAD multiplication plots which they will repay later. The farmers will also be given loans to acquire chipping machines and tarpaulins for drying cassava to increase the shelf life.

Commenting on the project, the Executive Director of C-MAD, Mr Kassim Were, said that the approach is to shift away from the conventional way in which supply creates demand to a situation where the market becomes demand driven. He further said that by establishing the factory close to the farmers it will increase their ownership and enable the project to open up the rural areas for development. “The young professionals who waste their talents and skills in deplorable situations in the slums of cities and towns in search of white collar jobs should be encouraged to come back home and participate in these lucrative development opportunities”, said Were.