One of the most traumatic discoveries I made when I first landed in the city was that all food was for sale. That I needed money for everything I ate was in direct conflict with my lived experience growing up in rural Kenya
I grew up in a large family. My late father owned 1.7 acres of land. Part of the land was occupied by coffee, the golden crop that paid school fees for most of my generation from Central Kenya.
On a rotational basis, we grew food crops such as maize, beans, bananas, sugarcane, potatoes on the remaining part of the land. Those were tempered with fruit trees here and there. In between were patches of vegetables, transforming the modest piece of land into a green buffet.
And of course, this piece of land was also home for a few cows; milk for sale and for brewing good, African tea.
This simple ecosystem of food production was replicated throughout the neighbourhood and beyond. We grew up with abundant food.
As far as I can remember the only thing we ever needed to buy for the kitchen was salt, cooking oil and sugar. This explains my cultural shock when I moved to Nairobi.
Food security at the household level in the rural areas is the foundation for the progress of the family. With food domestically produced, incomes are diverted to critical requirements like education, health and clothes. All translating to better living standards and better prospects for children. I’m a product of this reality.
Then something drastic happened. The generation of my father passed on. We grew up. We subdivided the land. Everybody ended up with a small plot of land and life became complicated.
The new owners of the subdivided land found themselves between a rock and a hard place. After establishing a homestead the remaining part of the land can hardly produce enough food for the family.
The few inherited coffee bushes no longer make any commercial sense neither is there space for cattle rearing meaning compromised nutrition and reduced incomes.
The net effect is the emergence of food insecure households living in what are rapidly evolving into rural slums, a phenomenon that was unknown a few years ago.
One can no longer design a house of their choice because of the small size of the plots. We have therefore ended up with classroom shaped buildings crazily thrown together.
The woes of the residents don’t end with the ungainly homes. Since every bit of the soil has to be put to maximum utility, access roads to the homes have been reduced to narrow footpaths that can’t allow emergency vehicles such as ambulances and fire engines access.
We have had situations where firemen have found themselves as spectators, watching a home burn down from a distance because they can’t access it due to the narrow footpaths.
And since the narrow footpaths have to be shared by different, ever growing families, they are the source of bitter disputes over the right of use leading to toxic co-existence.
And the dismal prospects on the farm have had other untended consequences contributing to an urgent national concern- rural-urban immigration.
With chances of making a decent living in the rural areas reduced to near zero, many young people are heading to towns looking for non-existent jobs.
They end up taking up every available casual job that can hardly keep their bleeding souls together leave alone make a difference back home.
Others turn to crime, terrorizing residents from one corner of the county to the next. Even more sadly, the disillusionment among villagers has led them to unmitigated alcoholism. Coming across scenes where an entire youthful population is drunk all hours of the day is a daily occurrence in some villages in the Mt Kenya region.
This emerging scheme of things invites us to look at the affordable housing program being rolled out by the government across the country with a fresh perspective.
Since the primary problem is sub-division of land leading to unproductive pieces that can’t feed the average family, further fragmentation must be discouraged.
For this to happen, people must have alternative places where they can own homes away from the traditional sense of ‘home’.
I’m imagining a situation where my large family took up ownership and residences in the affordable housing coming up in Makenji near Kenol and Thika town.
This would mean that we wouldn’t have to establish homes in my father’s piece of land, freeing it for its original purpose-feeding the family and generating income.
That would not only be viable in my village but throughout our county and beyond. In the Mt Kenya region, for instance, the volcanic soils are best for food production both for domestic consumption and feeding urban populations- a sure way of eliminating perennial food shortage in the country.
And unlike in the past, technology and better crop husbandry that is now easily available can transform those small holdings into hubs of prosperity.
All that is needed is sufficient water for irrigation as opposed to rain fed agriculture. The plan to construct many dams across the country will neatly fit in the strategy to shift away from rain fed agriculture.
This will go hand in hand with crucial environmental regeneration of water towers through the 15 billion tree planting program that go a long way in making these small parcels of land productive by guaranteeing adequate water supply.
The possibilities of creating thriving and prosperous farming communities under the affordable housing are limitless.
Today, each farmer grows whatever crop that comes to mind. In one village, you find small individually owned plots with as many as 20 different crops.
At the end of it all an entire village can’t produce a tonne of any given crop. This makes the produce unattractive to traders because it’s makes no economic sense to travel long distances to pick up a few kilograms of farm produce.
Once affordable housing frees land for agriculture, villagers can be encouraged to grow one crop per village at any given season. This would mean plenty of that particular crop at one location attracting large markets within the concept of the economics of scale.
Such arrangements would open up the villages for contracting farming by local institutions and manufacturers as well as incubate cottage industries. All this would create predictable incomes that would enable villagers to easily meet their obligations for the affordable houses.
With these measures in place, I foresee my beloved Jasho village spinning better incomes that will not only improve better standards of living at the household level, but also contribute to keeping the national economic wheel humming along.
Globally, food production in now recognized as the single most, critical factor of survival because food imports swiftly gobble up export earnings turning all economic activity to a fruitless ping pong game.
In the global north, governments are literally paying farmers to grow food for their populations through subsidies. In the same way, governments in the Middle East are leasing land in Africa to grow food for their people because with each passing year, huge part of their petrol dollars go into food purchases.
In the Far East, countries such China and Indonesia are turning to making use of every available piece agricultural soil. They are moving people into structured housing similar to our affordable houses concept.
Villagers are moved to government built houses within reach of farmlands. During the day, they work on the farms and retire to their homes in the evening.
With the traditional single family homes disappearing, more land for food production becomes available. In this respect, Egypt is a pioneer with their farming villages along the Nile.
This is what it would mean for my Jasho village. With people moving to affordable houses, evenly distributed, services would move closer to the farming campuses.
Schools, healthcare, security, sewerage and other social services would be easier to provide for people living together in properly designed compounds.
More importantly at the cost range, my fellow villagers would have the opportunity to live in decent, self-contained houses, way beyond their wildest dreams, houses that offer them that allusive, dignified life.
Indeed, in Kenya, average folks only get to own houses through mortgages, banks and SACCO loans because it is difficult to own a house through savings.
It is matter of fact that owners of homes in estates like Buru Buru, Umoja, Donholm, secured them using loans from institutions such as HFCK among others.
However, such instruments are expensive and way beyond the range of Kenyans outside the formal economy. With its friendly structure, affordable housing is therefore god sent for Kenyans at the bottom of the income ladder.
The affordable housing offers an investment that will be passed from one generation to the next. It’s also collateral that can unlock financing for businesses and other necessities.
Samuel Maina is the Editor-in-Chief of the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation.
