By Nicholas Waigwa
Small-scale farmers in Rombo continue to bear the rising cost of production while having little say over what their produce is worth at the farm gate, even as the same products command much higher prices in urban markets.
I can already imagine how my fellow Rombo residents will be treated to a day of sweet speeches and moments of rhetorical statements during the September visit by our dear President and neighbour these days.
.jpg)
The Government of Kenya is doing what it is required to do with taxpayers’ money by constructing the Illasit-Taveta road. This is a big score and a reprieve for those of us who have travelled that road and know what it has put us through over the years. There are other ongoing projects, and they are most welcome as long as they add real value to the lives of the people of Rombo.
A Presidential Visit Should Bring More Than Promises
But I am sure the President will also pay attention to some of the other pressing challenges experienced by the people of Rombo. I may not speak to all of them, but there is one that I find particularly pertinent: agriculture.
Agriculture is a very promising pathway out of poverty. But if poorly managed, it can just as easily push people into abject poverty.
This is where my concern lies.
Unlike what is often the case with cash-crop farmers and large-scale agricultural producers elsewhere in the country, small-scale farmers have been largely neglected and left exposed to unchecked farm-input costs and opportunistic pricing of their produce.
The irony is that the farmer bears almost the entire burden of production but has very little control over the value of what he or she has produced.
Farmers do not determine the price of farm inputs. They often have little influence over the price at which their produce is bought. Yet they are expected to absorb the losses when the numbers simply do not add up.
Small-Scale Farmers Need a Fair Return
The President does not need to be educated about farmers. He knows the drill. He can understand the plight of a farmer who invests heavily in a crop, waits for months for it to mature and eventually ends up with little or nothing after selling it.
This is why one question that the people of Kajiado South, and particularly Rombo where farming is no longer becoming a viable venture for many, may want answered is this: Will the administration of President William Ruto consider establishing a minimum return guarantee for small-scale farmers?
It should make economic sense for someone to farm.
It cannot be right that a farmer has no control over either the price of the inputs used to produce a crop or the price at which that crop is eventually sold. When the cost of production keeps rising while the farm-gate price remains depressed, the mathematics simply do not add up.
And when the mathematics do not add up, farmers eventually stop farming.
This is particularly worrying for young people. Many educated young people could find agriculture attractive if it offered a predictable and dignified livelihood. Instead, they see their parents and neighbours invest heavily in farming only to struggle to recover their costs. They understandably begin looking elsewhere for opportunities.
Once Complete, The Tomato Project Must Not Leave Small Farmers Behind
The exploitation of small-scale farmers must therefore be treated as an economic and policy issue, not simply as a seasonal problem that surfaces whenever there is an oversupply of a particular crop.
The proposed tomato processing project could help if completed and properly managed. It could provide an important market for farmers. But it is unlikely to be a complete solution. It will not necessarily absorb all the tomatoes produced in the area, and there are already indications that some large-scale farmers may be better positioned to take advantage of such opportunities.
The small farmer must not be left behind.
There is also a need to look carefully at how tomatoes and other farm products are packaged and traded. Small-scale farmers often have little bargaining power and can easily be disadvantaged by arrangements that determine how their produce is graded, packaged and priced.
A farmer who has invested heavily in producing a crop should not be reduced to a helpless price taker at the very point when that crop is ready for the market.
From Farm-Gate Losses to City-Market Prices
What is particularly sad is that farm produce can go to waste in places such as Rombo while farmers are giving up on agriculture, yet in other parts of the same country, something as ordinary as a tomato in a single meal can be a luxury for some households.
There is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which food can rot at the farm while the same food becomes expensive by the time it reaches the consumer in the city.
The problem, therefore, is not simply that farmers need markets. They need fair and predictable markets—markets in which the person who produces the food is not the weakest link in the chain.
The Government should look at the entire agricultural value chain, from the cost of inputs to production, aggregation, transportation, processing and final retail prices. If there is money to be made from agriculture, the small-scale farmer who does the actual work should not be the person who makes the least from it.
A minimum return guarantee, properly designed and based on scientific assessment of production costs, could be one way of beginning to address this problem.
It would also send an important message to young people: that farming is not simply a desperate occupation for those who have failed to find other opportunities, but a viable economic enterprise worthy of investment, innovation and education.
As the President visits Kajiado South, I hope Rombo will not only hear about roads and other development projects, important as these are. I hope the voices of farmers will also be heard.
The visit comes at a time when political temperatures are rising. I hope it will surely not be another development visit tied to a political string and drama that ends with very little that is worth a presidential visit.
Rombo deserves development. Its people deserve dignity. And its farmers deserve a fair return on the work and resources they put into feeding the nation.
Most welcome to Rombo, Baba wa Taifa. Watoto wa taifa wanakusubiri.
This is also an interesting read:
