Smart farms

Why Europe wants Africa to end crop protection in case science one day shows it’s harmful

ERIC KIMUNGUYI CEO AGROCHEMICALS ASSOCIATION OF KENYA

By Eric Kimunguyi, CEO, CropLife Kenya/ Agrochemicals Association of Kenya

There is a certain state of mind where someone is so sure something is true they consider all information as proofand ignore everything that suggests otherwise. It’s how the majority of the world’s population believed the Earth was flat long after measurements showed the curve on the planet’s surface and its changing position relative to the sun and stars.

For, when you want to believe the Earth is flat, facts are only an interference.

And so it is with the current fashion for declaring that spraying locusts or any insects that eat part or all our crops is necessarily bad, even when there is no evidence at all that’s the case.

Indeed, so extreme is the anti-pesticide noise that we are in danger of plunderingour food output and increasing our dependency on Europe for generations ahead. Some have even have called it the new colonialism, in a mounting battle of ideas around food that is dividing the world, with the United States, Australia - and now the UK and France too- going one way, and the rest of Europe heading in the opposite direction.

Moreover, Europe is determined to line up Africa in its own camp, funding it to ban pest control as a ‘precaution, just in case it might do damage that no science has shown it does.

Take bees. Bees are pollinators, which means they fertilise many fruits and crops.But in Europe and Asia their numbers have fallen dramatically. The principal cause is a tiny mite that has invaded commercial hives carrying viruses that infect the bees and cause them to die.

Many commentators suggest other factors might be at play in suppressing the bees’ immunity to the viruses. Cambridge University, for instance, has reported that commercial bees, which are different from Europe’s wild bees, have been weakened by their lack of genetic diversity. Moreover, their previous explosion in numbers has seen them competing for resources with their wild brethren and driving many wild bees out of existence too.

Who knows if Cambridge University is right, but it does have some powerful academic credentials.

However, Africa’s situation different. It has far fewer commercial bees, but those it has are related and still intermix with its wild bees. Many scientists have now cited this as the main reason their numbers are not collapsing.

But while this real, fact-based debate goes on, another opportunistic one is underway. Europe’s green movement isn’t interested in mites, or viruses, or Cambridge University’s findings on genetic varieties. The public understands (and sends donations on) simple messages, and what can get simpler than ‘pesticides are killing bees’. So they say it, a lot, blaming the world’s newest class of insecticides, called neonicotinoids.

There doesn’t happen to be any science to support that. Take one recent African study funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on the use and effects of neo-nicotinoid insecticides in African agriculture. It promised a review of all the studies and science on the matter.

Yet, in its first paragraph of a 68-page report, it states: “experience in Europe and America has demonstrated that some agrochemicals – in particular the systemic insecticides typified by neonicotinoids – have serious negative effects on ecosystem services such as pollination”. It says this because some unidentified parties’ “experiences” is all it has, with not one reference to any scientific study showing that in the entire 68 pages. The US Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, once again renewed its approval of neo-nicotinoidsin 2020, based on the actual science.

The African study did find one case where neonicotinoids were used to kill mites on cocoa, but killing the mites saw a proliferation of secondary pests the mites normally fed on – so, not neonicotinoids harming pollinators, but the removal of a predator causing new issues.

But the scientists concluded that to review all the literature would be too expensive and that it was better to stop the use of neonicotinoids anyway on a “precautionary” basis.

So, another report that mentions throughout that neo-nicotinoids damage bees without a single piece of evidence to that effect, but which proposes banning, just in case they do, which is exactly what Europe has done, whereas the US is confined to acting on claims that have scientific evidence.

In Africa, the difference these insecticides make to our yields run from 10 or 20 per cent to nearly 100 per cent crop loss without them. But our food comes cheap when you have a foreign point to make.

So it’s up to us whether we want scientific proof that bees are dying from neonicotinoids, of which there is none yet, or to ban them and drop a third of our food production just to show our solidarity with parts of Europe. Because even parts of Europe aren’t for this evidenceless ‘precaution’. France has overturned the EU ban, Romania has, and, within one week of leaving Europe, the UK did too.

So does our food security matter, and do facts matter?They should.

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Farmers cash in on emerging hay and cattle delivery sub-sector

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By George Munene

As more farmers adopt zero-grazing and modern feeding methods that incorporate dried hay feeds that can be stored and used over the dry season, this has spurred the creation of an auxiliary agricultural sub-sector: the ferrying of feed (mostly hay) and sometimes animals to farmers. For Joseph Kiarie, this has been his line of work since 2016.

Currently, he transports up to 1500 bales daily which weigh between 14-17 kilograms each and costs Sh160-200 per bale depending on location. With his two trucks and through outsourced transport he now works with farmers across the country.

Before focusing on the logistics of fodder transport, Kiarie grew hay which he then sold to brokers. Increasingly he saw an emerging opportunity for himself to handle the entire farm to farm value chain as there was an influx of people into commercial dairy farming and a growing focus on more modern feeding methods.

With his ballooning client base, he no longer just relies on his own farmed hay. Hay is harvested from farmers when the weather is dry, this allows him to meet his orders even over the usually rainy March to May months.

The hay is then baled by contractors. He is working on acquiring his own baling equipment— two tractors and a baling machine—which could significantly cut on cost. Though expensive, costing upwards of 6.5 million, he hopes to have his own machines at the start of the next year.

While Joseph has the capacity to keep over 10,000 bales in his own storage shed, he outsources most of his storage to bigger farms such as Delamer and Gicheha in Nakuru. This owes to their having a better road system around them that is usable even when it rains and a lot of the country’s link roads are impassable. This is also far cheaper than incurring the cost of building and maintaining storage facilities he argues.

“Milk prices have been on the rise, which has enticed more people to commercialize their cow rearing methods; unlike before, now when I drive around areas of Nandi for example, I’ll rarely see farmers grazing their cows on the side of roads. More people are opting for more intensive rearing practices such as zero-grazing that have higher outputs,” Kiarie says.

As more farmers opt for high-value grasses such as Rhodes as a supplement to traditional fodder or look to improve their breeding stock by seeking better yielding cow varieties from across the country; he is the man who handles the logistics of this making sure everything gets to the farmer in good order and on time, cash on delivery, he insists.

The real headache in his line of work comes in the numerous government permits needed to operate within and transit across counties. A KeNHA wide load permit is a prerequisite, various counties then have their own required licenses. For counties such as Machakos and Garissa, you'll need an operating license, these can be paid per load or as a one-off monthly cost, Sh 3000 and 6000 respectively. Counties such as Nakuru charge for moving goods from one farm to the next while in Kisii for example he also has to part with an additional charge in parking fees.

Orders to far-flung counties require outsourcing to people with preexisting networks: “getting a loader to deliver hay to Mombasa makes more economic sense than it would if I did it myself. Regions such as Nairobi and Mombasa also have a lot of returning lorries that are often empty, I work with them to have them delivered to farmers across these routes at a much-reduced cost,” Joseph explains.

Having just delivered some Ankole cows, a breed especially popular in western Uganda, to a ranch in Narok county for a client he insists will remain unnamed, his bet on the niche agri-transport business is proving brisk business.

Joseph Kiarie: 0721804344/+254705271961

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Switching passions for tree tomatoes earns Uasin Gishu farmer 2M/year

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By George Munene

For Elisha Onzilu, switching from passion fruits to tree tomatoes proved the best farming decision he's ever made. Now harvesting at least 35 tons of the egg-shaped fruit annually from his farms in Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet; “a kilogram of the fruit usually has a farmgate price of Sh 60-70, my only regret as you might imagine is that I do not have more land to put under this wondrous fruit,” he rues.

The previous day he had to defer on a phone call interview as he was en route to delivering some 1.5 tonnes of the fruit to Nairobi, over the course of the day he said he will be ferrying another 0.7 tonnes. “As more people are catching on to tamarillo’s numerous health benefits there is an ever-expanding market that is hard to satisfy,” says the farmer who once supplied Nakumatt outlets across East Africa with the fruit.

Elisha's Journey into tree tomato farming begun some 10 years ago, catalyzed by his search for an alternative fruit to passion fruits which he’d found to have a high production cost: “The initial cost in setting up an acre under passion fruits could run me Sh230,000 while on the same piece of land it costs Sh 130-150,000 to establish tree tomatoes (one year from sowing seedlings to first fruit),” Elisha explains. This caters to everything; land preparation, seedlings, labor, manuring, fertilizers and transport costs.

While a tree can yield up to three kilograms, to avoid getting frustrated he advises farmers to scale down their expectations to at least one kilogram of fruit for every harvest. An acre should conservatively give 700 kilograms of fruit, at Sh60 on the kilo this earns Sh42,000 for every harvest, i.e., every two weeks.

Passion fruits require exhaustive regular routine management practices such as pruning and trailing besides being easily susceptible to diseases. Tree tomato harvests are also more to passion fruits which is exacerbated by the fact that passion fruits require a three-month pause in harvesting to allow for the regrowth of shoots. Tree tomatoes are harvestable throughout the year.

Passion fruits prices often fluctuate and at times crater to as low as Ksh20 a kilogram. Tamarillos for their part, usually hold steady at Sh60 to 70 with prices rarely falling below Sh50. This also partly owes to the ubiquity of passion fruits. Though more farmers are gradually taking up tree tomato growing they are still not as widely accessible.

To satisfactorily manage an acre of tree tomatoes, Elisha says he spends about Sh10,000 after every monthly harvest—this covers the control of pests as well as nourishing plants through manure and fertilizer application.

In growing tree tomatoes the most critical factor to consider is feeding—they are vociferous in their consumption of fertilizers and water. Tree tomatoes can be harvested every two weeks, but for this to be continued over the tree’s 5-to-10-year lifespan it needs to be regularly nourished.

A farmer needs to apply 160-200Kg of synthetic fertilizers per acre every three months for top dressing. This is buttressed by 15-20 tonnes of manure applied for the fruit’s lifetime. This is especially crucial as Onzillu illuminates; “unlike artificial fertilizers which have a limited utility window the tree is able to feed on organic fertilizer throughout its life expectancy.”

Tree tomatoes are broad-leafed this means they have a high respiration rate thus consume a lot of water. For Elisha, watering is done twice or thrice a week feeding each plant up to 10 liters.

The usually rainless December to March months he says, are characterised by reduced yields, this can be ameliorated by irrigation.

The location of his farms in Elgeyo Marakwet which has an altitude of 2,700 meters also gives him a competitive advantage to other tree tomato farmers. A 2500–3000-meter altitude is the most ideal for tamarillos as fruits grown here have a red almost purple hue that is preferred by consumers.

Due to increased farmer inquiries in order to satisfy burgeoning market demand, Elisha has also ventured into seedling production, selling each at Sh10.

Elisha Onzilu: 0791919170

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