Kenya’s fossil-fuelled fertiliser crisis and how to fix it

The last few years have been full of discontent for Kenya. At the end of March 2023, thousands of people marched in the streets to protest against the soaring price of basic commodities such as maize flour (unga), cooking oil and sugar. The atmosphere was electric, charged by crowds shouting, “Njaa (Hunger) Revolution” and “Saba Saba, March for Our Lives!”

But when agriculture contributes 20% of the country’s GDP and employs 40% of the population, it is crucial to ask: why are our farmers unable to feed their communities? The culprit, when you strip it down, is a neocolonial dependence on fossil fuels: in this case, the petrochemicals used to produce synthetic fertilisers and pesticides.

Even within farming communities, it’s not well known that agrochemicals are a type of fossil fuel. However, this connection must be addressed to fully understand the intricate relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the economic and health challenges facing Kenyans today. As the founder of Naki Nawiri Afrika, an organisation addressing gender, climate, and food justice in Kenya’s rural communities, shedding light on these intersections is an important part of my role. 

Reconnecting with the past

In June 2023, I visited a farm in Kaani, Machakos County, as part of Naki Nawiri Afrika’s ongoing Food Justice initiative. This project involves technical and political education on food production, skills transfer on landscape management, saving Indigenous seeds, and sustainable production without the use of agrochemicals.

It also involves tafakari (reflection) forums, where farming communities can share their experiences. I led the discussions, assisted by Kalondu – we call her our local human library. At 91 years of age, she has seen it all. She often brings historical aspects to our discussions, comparing the past and the present and helping set the pace for the future.

Why are these discussions so important? Because, right now, across Kenya, there’s widespread negativity about Indigenous seeds and localised farming methods. It’s my mission, and that of other farmers, to let people know that we need to return to our Indigenous wisdom if we want to move forward.

The genesis of exploitation

During the colonial period, 7.5 million acres were reserved for British settlers as ‘Crown Property’. Land was taken away and local communities were driven into native reserves.

The colonisers attacked the African mindset, too, perpetuating an ongoing negative narrative towards Indigenous food systems and African soil. This is still apparent through policies that continue to subsidise and favour the use of synthetic fertilisers.

Transnational fertiliser companies are thriving in Kenya. The far-reaching tentacles of these corporations are placing farmer supply stores, like Agrovets, even in the most remote villages in Kenya. 

This is in direct conflict with the Kenyan Constitution. Article 43 speaks to food sovereignty, stating that “Every Kenyan has the right to be free from hunger, and to have adequate food of acceptable quality.” But what is acceptable about synthetic inputs to grow our food, when they come at the cost of our livelihoods and health?

Fertiliser-subsidy programmes lure smallholders into a global system that’s subject to price fluctuations, chaining farmers to an industrial model of production. After being sold the narrative that soil is unhealthy and synthetic fertilisers are the remedy, farmers become overdependent on these inputs, believing that without them, there can be no farming.

Even worse, any change in oil and gas markets has a direct impact on the price of agrochemicals. This volatility impacts smallholder farmers across Kenya – who, already struggling to afford fertiliser, are hit with even higher costs.

Not every farmer has money to buy these fertilisers. And while our people have used manure for centuries, this is now under threat, with a recent push to outlaw its use in agriculture. This threatens to criminalise traditional practices in favour of alternatives that line the pockets of international corporations.

Synthetic fertilisers are also harming our health. They are made from inorganic compounds that wash into and pollute our water systems. Many Kenyans collect water directly from rivers and lakes for domestic use, but these chemicals are seeping into those sources. People and livestock often consume this contaminated water for a long time and only come to realise the danger too late, when they start exhibiting symptoms of ill health. 

Locals often feel powerless to get justice for environmental pollution – especially if the polluter is a transnational corporation with more financial clout and lobbying power. This is further complicated by the often-used argument that agrochemical companies create jobs for local people, claiming they benefit the community.

Colonial metamorphosis

Kalondu tells me that our food used to be more nutritious and people were healthier. “I could eat one meal and take the cow to graze and come back in the evening just before darkness. We used to grind millet on a stone, but nowadays people do not want anything Indigenous,” she laments.

“When they go to the posho mill, they ask for ‘special’ maize that has been hulled and stripped of nutrients, which they then cook – and after one hour they are hungry again.”

The preference for hulled maize in Kenya also happens in my village in Siaya, 318 kilometres from Nairobi City. When I talk to the women who work in the mills, they tell me that many people believe that hulling maize is ‘modern’ and, therefore, superior. 

There is a need for a radical shift – backwards. Kenyan food producers should be supported in rejecting the use of fossil fuels on their soil and returning to their traditional practices.

It’s clear that colonialism did not end with Kenya’s independence in 1963. But a ray of hope is emerging.

Farmers are slowly realising that there is something wrong with their soil. That, despite years of using fertilisers, their yields are not better. They’re beginning to ask where things went wrong and who is responsible. They’re questioning the narrative that African soil is inherently unhealthy and starting to revert to traditional systems that work in harmony with nature. 

Indeed, Indigenous agroecology helps repair broken food systems, challenges the narrative that African agriculture is backward and archaic, and at the same time honours the core of Africa: our food – a celebration of our culture, and the glue that binds us together as a people.