The Business of Breeding Beans

Entomology was my first love.

Over the years, I have had many other love interests. Other than Kiswahili, there is no subject that I loved more than Biology. I easily scored a straight A in it on my final exams. Even then, I knew that I would either end up as a Linguist or a Biologist focusing on insects.

But as a certain Beatle said, life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.

I somehow ended up in an agricultural engineering course. Along the way, I became a blogger too and was part of the Media Team for the recent CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Convention. After the event, I went to collect my dues at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Nairobi’s Kasarani area.

It was exciting for me.

You see, CIAT offices are located within the International Center for Insect Pathology and Ecology (ICIPE) headquarters. The site is a lasting reminder of the pioneering work done by my village mate,  Prof. Thomas Odhiambo.

I arrived at the gate last Friday at around 10 AM and was immediately drawn in by two wrought iron statues of rhinoceros beetles.

I have a small collection of these insects and if I ever become an Entomologist, I will focus on them. Or butterflies, I was feeling them in my stomach.

Damn first loves, you never forget them.

Soon after, I was at the CIAT offices. Instead of going away after collecting the cash, I chose to hang around and discover what they are up to. During the convention, I never really got to attend any presentation by someone from the organisation and so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.

I moved from office to office until, all of a sudden, I bumped into the Peruvian.

“It’s good to see you once again amigo!”

He spoke with a heavy accent, while patting my back with his tiny, plump left hand. We had met the week before at the gala dinner and quickly became friends.

All I had to mention was that my all time favorite book was originally written in Spanish. He, at the time, told me that he’d been working on a bean project at the institution.

“Come, friend, let me show you what we are up to…”

He is a short man with a plump stomach and probably in his mid 40s. Juarez walks rather fast and I have to keep up despite having longer strides. We pass three offices a narrow hallway with lime colored walls and a grey floor tiles. Throughout the stretch, the walls are filled with technical charts and pictures of CIAT scientists on the field.

I see one with Juarez holding a bag full of pulses, bursting with life.

“Here we are my amigo, come in!”

He jovially says as he opens the door into his office. The black desk is in a mess with only two things visible from the mountain of papers: A picture of his wife with their two daughters and a small Madonna covered in blue-white veils with a pink rosary thrown over it.

He asks me to go stand beside him as he settles on his brown swivel chair. It squeaks a little as he does so, crying from all the weight it has to bear. He laughs at it, and opens switches on the computer. The screensaver is an imposing image of Machu Picchu.

“You know what amigo, mis abuelos built this majestic thing, I’ll take you there when you visit Peru! Before that, though, let me tell you about the business of breeding beans”

He opens a several PDF reports and quickly takes me through each one, while speaking in a more serious tone:

“There are many reasons why crop breeding is done. Many times, it is to create new varieties that can generate higher yields in the face of environmental issues. Often, a certain taste is desired. At times, is for the sake of aesthetics especially in high income economies…”

He reaches into his navy blue pants and takes out a white handkerchief. He squints his large eyes and wipes sweat off his brown, plump face. As he does so, I notice that the hanky has an image of the Powerpuff Girls fighting Mojo Jojo.

I, strenuously, hold my laugh as he puts it away and continues:

“At CIAT, we focus on developing new varieties for increased income, nutrition and resilience. This is particularly important for our home continents given that Africa and S. America are the highest bean consumers and among the poorest regions…

In the past 20 years alone, we have facilitated the release and uptake of more than 500 different bean varieties” .

Courtesy: International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)

He holds his breath to let it sink in. The chair squeaks again. He laughs at it, then finishes with:

“It is all about business, mi amigo. The breeds are meant to meet market demands. High yielding breeds allow farmers to produce more and generate more income. At times, some of these varieties are specifically designed for canning, fast cooking and certain nutritional needs such as iron deficiency.”

He stands up and tells me to think about it.

I do so, and conclude that crop breeding is advantageous to farmers. When availed with the right varieties, they can be able to generate facilitate food and nutritional security.

At the same time, they will grow their income levels, one bean at a time. One breed at a time.

Keep breeding!

The Man Who Bred Bread

It is almost 2 AM and we are at the rooftop bar of the Trademark Hotel, off Limuru Road.

After a hectic week at the 2018 CGIAR Big Data in Agriculture Platform Convention, the after party was a welcome relief. I was seated on a comfy blue couch, overlooking a calm infinity pool.

Beyond it, the Nairobi skyline shone in all its glory.

Courtesy: Mutua Matheka

A little tipsy, I was just seated there smiling sheepishly at the dark sky and brilliant lights. Just as I’m about to slip into a stupor from all the free-flowing drinks, she stands in front of me. There’s just something about a charming young woman that sobers one up.

“Do you know that we have a wheat shortage to thank for all this?”

She asks, while pointing at the beautiful cityscape. She’s wearing a yellow kitenge dress with silhouetted motifs and a fishtail curvature that sensually grabs her figure. I’m still not listening as she repeats the statement.

I am focusing more on her cute, tiny eyes. They are what drew me to her at the gala dinner a couple of hours ago. I want to say something, but the stupor returns, I fall back on the couch.

My father always warned me and my siblings against alcohol. Now I know why.

She walks away. As she does so, she shouted, in her mellow voice:

“Go and find out who bred bread!”

I woke up the next day tired, recovering from a hangover I should never have had in the first place. Its around midday and I am at my place, with no memory of how I even got there. My near-empty stomach is crying, wailing, for help.

Quickly, I jump out of bed, stumble a little, but find my balance and head to the kitchen.

The moment I saw that a loaf of bread on the kitchen table, all the memories came trooping back. The hunger somehow disappears and I rush towards my computer. Her last statement made no sense given that bread cannot be bred. I wanted to find out what she really meant.

A couple of clicks later I came across a name: Norman Borlaug.

It was surprised that I had never heard the name before. This is despite the significant role the American agronomist has played in plant breeding. It is impossible to speak about the science of it without mentioning his name.

I was even more excited given that the blog series I am currently on is entirely about breeding. Opening several other web pages revealed a ton of information about the Nobel Laureate.

Through what is often termed as the Green Revolution, he was able to save an estimated 1 billion lives. That is not an easy feat, and it takes a special kind of person to pull it off. That got me even more psyched up and I went to YouTube to view a couple of documentaries on him.

So, how did he do it?

Borlaug on a field visit.

Wheat, alongside maize and rice, are the three most important food crops. They serve as the staple foods all over the world and a shortage in any one of them is of great concern. The East African famine of 2011 was due to maize shortage. The Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61 was due to a severe shortage of rice.

In the 1940s, Mexico was heading towards the same direction. The wheat production was extremely low and farmers could not manage to produce enough to even feed their own families. A combination of factors including fungal diseases and land degradation led to low produce that left the country in a precarious situation.

He moved to Mexico in 1944 and took charge of a wheat improvement program jointly funded by the Mexican Government and the Rockefeller Foundation. Dubbed the Cooperative Wheat Research and Production Program, it served as a precursor to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).

Borlaug quickly set to work and created a team that was focused on achieving the three primary objectives of breeding: Disease resistance, robustness, and high productivity. In under five years, they were able to breed a variety of wheat that met all these characteristics.

Furthermore, they further refined it by breeding for semi-dwarfism which made the stalks stronger and hence capable of holding more produce. This lower height also made it suitable for mechanization of wheat production. Within some 20 years, Mexico became self-sufficient in wheat production, and soon began exporting.

He replicated this success in Pakistan and India which were also facing similar situations. Most of the wheat that is farmed commercially these days bears characteristics that are the result of his work. Production of wheat products, therefore, still heavily relies on his pioneering work.

This means that, in a way, he is the man who bred bread as we know it.

Alongside the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), CIMMYT became among the first agricultural research centers brought under the umbrella of CGIAR (Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research). The event that she and I met in was one organized by CGIAR.

Turns out she was right about this, too. We did have a wheat shortage to thank for that beautiful night.

One Banana, Years of Solitude

Ursula did warn them, she really tried.

All of her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren knew about it. She never ceased to warn them, till the very day she went into the moist soils of Macondo.

She always told them that those who inbred will give birth to iguanas. If not, their children will grow a pig’s tail.

But they never listened.

One of them even asked a soldier, “Can a man marry his own aunt?”.  He responded with, “… We are fighting this war against the priests so that one can marry his own mother!”

And that is how it went on, despite Ursula’s warnings.

Love and desire, like they always do, plotted against logic.

From one generation to the next, they bred with one another. The mistakes of one generation were repeated in the next as brothers married sisters and aunties conceived with their nephews.

Eventually, the last child among the Buendias of Macondo got a pig’s tail. His name was Aureliano, son of Aureliano Babilonia and his aunt Amaranta Ursula.

It is not her family only that she told about the dangers of inbreeding, though.

When the Banana Company first set foot in Macondo, she did warn its agronomists. She told them about it.

She made it clear that if they were to focus on only one variety of the plant, then they will face the same fate. At some point, the plant will have certain limitations, especially against diseases.

Profits and convenience, like they always do, plotted against logic.

They, like the members of her large family, never listened. The Banana Company built a railway line and cleared large tracts of land.

They planted thousands and thousands of hectares of mono-culture Gros Michel bananas. The demand in North America and Europe was the key driver.

This makes some sense since cross-pollinating one banana plant with another was out of question. Their flowers do not allow for that.

Therefore, the company chose to focus on a variety that gave the most yields, and hence returns.

On top of this, they exerted the massive influence of their home government and extensive capital to achieve their business objectives. That included elimination of other cultivars.

They even massacred thousands of Macondo people, just to prove a point.

Thenin the 1950s, forasium wilt (the Panama disease) began its rampage.The fungus destroyed almost all plantations owned by the Banana Company.

In the face of this threat to their operations, the organisation started to look into a new variety that they could produce. And that is how the Cavendish cultivar became the most commercialized banana.

With a massive marketing campaign, the company popularized the variety and pushed up demand. To ensure uniformity of produce, the company continued with its practice of extensive monoculture plantations.

This was bolstered by the fact that it was more powerful than most governments of the time and controlled 90% of the banana market.

This, from an economic point of view, was a genius move. Having a uniform plantations means that you can manage them more efficiently.

This made the whole enterprise more profitable and over time the practice was spread in banana plantations all over the world.

From a genetic point of view, however, it is exactly what Ursula warned against.

The bananas that were planted from one generation to another were essentially ‘inbreeds’ of one another.

Almost all the Cavendish bananas that are stocked in supermarkets today are clones of those cultivars first propagated in Latin America by the Banana Company.

And that is where the danger lies.

As Ursula said, inbreeding strengthens the bad genes in the family, exposing it to dangers such as growing a pig’s tail.

Now, bananas cannot grow tails. However, they are susceptible to certain diseases. A new, stronger strain of the Panama disease is on the rise and can wipe out all Cavendish bananas.

A bunch of Cavendish bananas

This one banana cultivar has enjoyed years of solitude as the mainstay in the fruit market. Since they are all clones of one another, the disease is likely to make them go extinct.

Already, some plantations in Africa such as those in Mozambique and others in the Middle East have already been destroyed by this aggressive fungus.

That is why inbreeding is discouraged not only in humans but also in plants. The gene pool is weakened by such measures.

In the chase for profits, however, this is unlikely to end anytime soon.

As for the banana however, scientists are in a rush against time to identify or breed a new cultivar that is both resistant to the fungus but also commercially viable.

There are hundreds of banana varieties to choose from, but it is a tough job nonetheless.

In the near future, bananas could look very different from what we are used to now. So, enjoy the Cavendish while it lasts.

A Mozambican Plantation ravaged by the disease (CNN)

Sperm Banks & Maize Cobs

In 2016, I worked at a sperm bank in Nairobi West.

The circumstances of my working there are strange given that I have no medical training. I was in a desperate situation. I was on long holiday from the university and couldn’t find any relevant internship.

There’s an old Swahili saying that goes something like this: “Mchagua jembe sio mkulima” (Do whatever you can to earn a living). I had this in mind when I applied for the position, and strangely enough, I was accepted. I learnt a lot during that time.

I particularly became more knowledgeable about breeding. Whenever I think of my time at the bank, I recall how much the doctor I reported to explained the similarities between crop breeding and how a sperm bank works. Over that period, I learnt about the history of crop breeding.

She was a heavily built woman with a soft voice. Her sparingly wrinkled face revealed that she was approaching her fifties. She was almost always dressed in sky blue clothes underneath a white overcoat. Her square-rimmed eyeglasses had fierce, feral patterns. An expert in reproductive medicine, she commanded everyone’s respect.

On my first day at work, she told me how it works.

“I know I know, Owade, I know you are confused. After all, what business does an agricultural engineering student have in a sperm bank?”

The moment she said those words I started grinning from end to end, it is as if she had understood all that I had in mind without even mentioning it.

We were seated on one end of the conference room, side by side.  The shiny black hardwood table stretched a few feet in front of us, empty. The walls were filled with pictures of couples with beaming faces.

All the women were either carrying a pregnancy or carrying a baby, or two. There was one odd picture though.

“Look at it carefully son, that picture contains everything you’ll need to know”, she said.

I moved stood up and moved towards it to get a closer look.

“You know, maize is one of those all-important crops. Those cobs you see on the streets are the result of centuries of selective breeding. The process is in many ways akin to what we do here…”

Now this was starting to get interesting, so I moved back to my chair.

“There are two main reasons why people come to here to seek our assistance. In most cases, it is couples who are having trouble conceiving. The other category often involves single women who wish to have children and raise them on their own”.

That made some sense but I still could not understand how it related to maize cobs in a crowded Nairobi street. After asking for clarification, she proceeded:

“The job you’ll be doing here will not demand any medical skills. What I need you to understand are the underlying agricultural principles, which I believe you will. Sperm donation and artificial insemination borrow a lot from crop breeding”.

I sat up straight.

“Just like in humans, there is great genetic variation in the maize plant. In centuries past, humans learnt that they could increase the productivity of these plants through artificial hybridization…

…This has been going on for ages and will continues as people seek to develop crops that have superior genetic characteristics such as better yields, fast growth, and greater resistance to environmental shocks, pests and diseases.”

This made me wonder whether such a desire for hybridization was limited to plants only. AS if reading my mind once again, she went ahead to say what she was thinking:

“The people who seek our help are very particular on the physical characteristics of the sperm donors. They are very keen on things such as the donor’s height, fitness, age, educational achievement, completion, and mental stability. We also do several screenings to weed out donors with genetic or congenial diseases…

Our clients, they want babies that look, and possibly act a particular way”

I wanted to ask whether I could become a  donor too, but then she cut me short:

“From thousands of maize strains, crop breeders have used this same concept for selection. The white variety with long cobs and big seeds is a descendant developed through several iterations of cross-breeding ancient varieties. These characteristics make it attractive, and hence a preferred choice for roasters”

A few maize varieties

She, however, never told me the science behind it. That is why after my time there, I went to find someone else who could. That’s what I’ll share with you next week, See ya!

 

Crop Breeding: From Svalbard to Zuhura

“The year 2128 was a terrible one”.

The robot seemed to cry as it said those words.

We were pacing all over one of Zuhura’s numerous decks as we inspected the rows and rows and rows of rice plants. The white basins on which they grew were filled with a dense bluish mist that nourished them. Piled up to 300 meters into the air, production was in full force.

As she spoke, Ms. Robot and I were being lifted on a platform that would allow us to see the crops on the upper decks. She glided along the rows, took mental notes and reported that the crops were doing fine. I agreed, and we moved on.

The platform lowered us and we were soon moving on solid ground again.

The snake-like, 5 foot robot led the way as I followed a short distance behind. For such a long machine, it was slender given that it did not measure more than 2 inches at its widest point. Its cylindrical body was filled with all sorts of sensors, making her the perfect assistant during crop inspection runs.

We were soon at the orchard.

This was one of my favorite spots, it reminded me of the world we lost. Of all the planting decks, it had the what appeared to be the closest resemblance to the vineyards of centuries past. The mangoes, apples, cherries, papayas, loquats, berries, avocadoes, and many many more.

I stood at one end and beamed the inspection gun. Its blue-yellow light filled the deck as it gathered data on each fruit. In the meantime, Ms. Robot moved from one tree to another at lightning speed. When she came back, her results matched mine.

They were all doing fine, too.

Our inspections done for the day, I bid Ms. Robot goodbye and headed to the observatory. It was raining, and the pink, brown and colorless drops of sulfuric acid covered that thick windows that protected the deck from the chaos that is Venus’ atmosphere.

Zuhura is one of the two dozen farm-cities that float some 50 kilometers above the surface of Venus. They are part of hundreds of similar but much larger cities akin to the space crafts I dreamt about all those years ago. Humans moved here after the catastrophe.

Zuhura, as it stands today.

 

Sitting at the observatory reminded me of that eventful day. Even after five decades since the doom, I remember it clearly, as if it just happened yesterday. It was in February, on Friday the 13th, the year 2128.

An apprehensive day, it was.

Unlike previous in years when most people would have been preparing for Valentines Day, evacuations to the Antarctic and outer space were in had already ended. Not all people could be carried on the space arks and therefore priority was given to those with expertise in needed areas.

The frozen continent was thought to be the next best alternative. That was a tough and controversial choice, I often wonder whether the situation could have been handled differently.

There was a huge risk of a meteor colliding with the planet.

“Asteroids and meteors are just jealous of Earth because they didn’t become planets!”, were the last words Ivar, one of my colleagues in the 1000-strong team said before we were asked to do the necessary. Some in the multidisciplinary team laughed, nervously.

There were fears that should the meteor hit the Earth, it could cause mass extinction. We had been preparing to evacuate the Global Seed Bank at Svalbard for years since the first reports of the risk were announced. The bank was made for Dooms day, and here it was.

The billions of seeds in its valuts had to be evacuated to the moon.

The evacuation was done secretly for several weeks eight months before the collision happened. We separated the vaults into appropriate sets, and placed them in massive shipping containers. Each one was labelled with the logo and of the Crop Trust.

The Norwegian cold stood in sharp contrast with the heat that would soon sweep through the world. That heat killed more than 8.5 billion people. Just slightly over a billion people safely made it to the Venus-bound floating cities like Zuhura and the Mars colony.

The last memories I have of Earth are of what happened on that Friday the 13th. The telescopes orbiting the planet beamed us the images on our moon station. The impact was, ironically, near the Cape of Good Hope. A huge blinding light was seen followed by a loud bang that could be heard all over the galaxy!

Even at thousands of kilometers away, we sweated, profusely the extreme heat that scorched the Earth. We trembled upon seeing the violent winds swept up sky-crappers like leaves in a storm. Tsunamis that were a hundred times the height of Mount Everest wrecked havoc. We wept. All of us lost family and friends in the doom.

Earth died a violent death.

The collision, as it happened.

Before that, the billions of seeds were shipped to the Kennedy Space Center on the Florida coast. Our team then split into twenty groups of 50 each and were airlifted to several rocket launch sites around the world.

A few days later we were blasted into the lunar surface to set up facilities for preserving and breeding the seeds. Since then, moon has acted as the new Svalbard and all space farms rely on it for their seeds.

The extensive diversity in that gene pool has been vital to humanity’s survival in this new environment.

Even in the face of such a catastrophe, crop breeding still exerts its importance. That is why in the next couple of weeks I’ll share with you stories on:

1. The History of crop breeding
2. The art & craft of crop breeding
3. The science of crop breeding
4. The economics of crop breeding

Keep breeding, and yeah, pun intended!

The Svalbard Global Seed Bank, as it once stood.

Testing Irrigation Water

Stage left, enters the Athi River.

The very first agricultural blog that I published on this site was “You Deserve Better Mangoes”. Originally, I wanted to name it “The Shit Eaters of Nairobi” but I thought it would be a bit distasteful (pun intended) to many people.

In truth, however, it is highly likely the food you are eating is likely to be toxic. It might be full of shit as it is grown using polluted waters. I would not like to rewrite what I did in January. but I’ll tell you something I noted this past week.

There’s this friend of mine who’s developing an app that is designed to link smallholder farmers with the market. She called me and asked if I can take her on a field trip given that she is more knowledgeable in coding than agriculture.

I agreed and on Saturday we were off to an area along the Athi River.

The first farmer we spoke to was busy watering his tomato plants. They looked healthy alright, but something was terribly wrong. The hose pipe he was using was connected to a pump that was sucking green waters from the river.

I did not want to comment on the matter so as not to offend him but I realized that with our currently weak trace-ability systems, this could very much end up on my plate within the next couple of months. It could end up in yours too.

As I did in that January post, I would like to say that we need to protect our rivers.

Other than just waiting on the government, we also need to change our culture for I see a lot of carelessness. There was this one time I was at the 14 Falls and I saw a child throwing a plastic bottle into the river, with encouragement from his mother.

To preach, though, is not the intention of this blog post. I wrote it to directly address any farmer or aspiring farmer.

You have to test the waters.

One of the most important things that any farmer can do is have their irrigation water sampled. There are several things that such an analysis investigates. These include the types and quantities of dissolved chemicals; the suspended solids; the BOD & COD, and electrical conductivity.

Why should one have their water tested, though?

Firstly, it is your moral responsibility. Being a farmer is a solemn duty akin to that of a doctor. You touch lives with your produce and therefore have the responsibility of ensuring that what reaches them is safe for consumption. This starts by using the right quality of water.

The other reason is that such tests tell you the quality of your water and hence its effectiveness for irrigation. Water with a high amount of suspended solids will clog your pipes and is especially harmful in drip irrigation systems.

The chemical composition of your water may also have an effect on how your agrochemicals perform. If it has certain chemicals that might hamper the action of the ones you are using, you can get tips on how to remediate the situation.

It may also contain high quantities of essential nutrients, hence saving you the money you would have used in purchasing fertilizers. That is something that can be of benefit to any farmer regardless of the crop they are planting.

Finally, irrigation water has the potential of changing the soil characteristics on your farm. This is particularly the case with water that has high concentration of salts as they can be deposited on your soil and affect things such as water infiltration. That is highly likely to hamper your crop yield.

These are just a few of the benefits that you’ll derive from testing your water. Like the tests for nutrients and pathogens, these institutions will take are of such needs:

1. Spectralab
2. Aqualytic Lab
3. SoilCares Ltd
4. CropNuts Ltd
5. Ujuzi Kilimo
6. SGS Ltd
7. JKUAT

The Miseducation of Mariana

“What does financial loss taste like..?”

She asks rhetorically, while forlornly staring up, at the canvas shade while biting nails off the pinkie on her right hand. I wanted of asking her a follow-up question to the one that had prompted this reaction, but then I thought otherwise.

I start biting my nails too, and gaze at her as she continues staring at the brown-green shade.

“Well, for one it’s not as bitter as the taste of unrequited love …”

She speaks so softly, as if to herself- while touching her ring finger. Where a silver circlet had once called home, for 8 years remained nothing. Nothing, but a cold, vacant room. The mark it has left behind is a shade lighter than the rest of her skin- akin to a fresh wound.

“Neither is it sweet, neither is it sweet…”

By now she has stopped touching the wound and is slowly, methodically, twisting a tuft of hair with her left hand while shaking her head from side to side.

We are seated at Java Galleria’s outdoor lounge on a warm Thursday Evening.

“They, and they, and even them too, were some of my customers…”

She raises her right arm as she says these words. She, respectively, points towards the Java house, an Artcaffe restaurant, and a Nakumatt signage that somehow survived the retailer’s purge from the space that is presently occupied by Carrefour.

“It happened so so fast, and we barely had time to recover…”

She is a middle-aged, middle-class woman.

Here head is covered with emerging dreads, and she has this habit of instinctively locking them every so often. From her chocolaty ears hang a pair of round, black Lauryn Hill earrings carved from bones.

She’s dressed in a white blouse with yellow floral patterns and blue, faded jeans. On her feet are a pair of sparkling white ngoma shoes. By my estimation, they are size 38.

She doesn’t look like your typical Kenyan farmer.

We first met in June this year at a Farmers’ Expo in Athi River. At the time, I thought there was no way she was a farmer. She seemed like one of those people who sat on blankets and drank wine with Muthoni Drummer Queen, Blinky Bill, and other cool people.

Although she does that sometimes, she also runs a farm.

“I left corporate life 3 years ago in an architectural firm to go into farming…” She continues.

By now the waiter has brought our orders.

As I chomp away my giant beef samosa, she stares at her cheese and tomato sandwich in disgust. I want to ask her whether she has seen an  insect crawling within it. But, once again, I decide to stay mum and sip my tea, like Kermit the Frog.

“It always pains me to look at tomatoes, and capsicums too…”

She speaks in a low, brittle voice as she, aggressively, forks a tomato ring- pressing it hard against the toast. Earlier on, way before this meeting, she had narrated to me how she lost her entire tomato crop.

The financial loss was massive and she has not yet recovered from the millions that went under.That is not the only thing that tanked, though.

Her marriage of 8 years to her college sweetheart and father of her two children also fell apart. At around the same time as the enterprise. It was partly due to the financial troubles that had been rocking their ship for sometime. She says, it is as if a typhoon struck her beach home and swept away all she valued and loved in one violent swoop.

How she kept her sanity in those turbulent times is a story she promised to tell me some other day.

“You see, fantasy is what people want. But reality is what they need.”

Mariana quotes her favorite artist as she goes on to explain how she lived in a fantasy when going into farming. She, in her opinion, believed all the hype that there is money in it.

And its not just hype, there actually is money in it, lots of it. That, however, is a very narrow way to view the sector. The problem with such a view is that it leaves a blind spot where the risks are lurking. And that may be in the very soil you are stepping on.

The puff she believed most was that she can take short cuts.

She believed most of the hype, and invested most of her savings along the way. She set up a tomato plantation at a plot she and her husband owned at the foot of Ngong’ Hills. For sometime, she generated profits and injected it all back into the business.

She started with 2 greenhouses and increased her capacity as demand kept rising month on month on month. This went on for some 18 months.

“For sometime, I lived in this fantasy, but then reality hit me when I expected it least…”

She narrates to me what she calls the Miseducation of Mariana:

“I was miseducated with regard to the best farming practices. All that drove me was the pursuit for money and I ignored one critical factor: I never got my farm screened for soil-borne pathogens…”

I find this particularly strange, especially for an educated and knowledgeable farmer like her. Unfortunately, she is not the only one who makes this catastrophic mistake, a majority of Kenyan smallholder farmers do not test their soils.Don’t be the next one.

As my thoughts drift away, she continues by saying:

“….This left my plants vulnerable to attacks. It is only by luck that we survived for those 18 months, especially for fragile, high value plants like tomatoes and colored capsicums”.

On one hot afternoon in November 2017, Mariana rushed to her farm after receiving an urgent call from its manager. What she saw there is the reason for her disgust with the, still untouched tomato and cheese sandwich: Her plants had been attacked by bacterial wilt and were dying off. She was staring at disaster.

In all the 10 greenhouses.

“That was my reality check, and it forcefully retired from the fantasy of shortcut methods. I no longer plant anything without understanding the pathogens that are present in the soils and how to control them”

The waiter brings back our bills and we start paying, even as she continues speaking:

“I overcame my miseducation the hard way, and I would not want anyone to go through the same experience. The financial implications are brutal and I have had to downscale to one greenhouse”.

We have been talking for slightly over an hour now and suddenly, her phone rings:

“It’s funny how money change a situation

Miscommunication lead to complication

My emancipation don’t fit your equation…”

Quickly, she grabs and silences it, then says that her time is done. She has a meeting with her divorce lawyer.

“Bye dear, tell your friends to have their soils tested. Tell them to get educated on the matter. The taste of loss isn’t sweet at all”.

And poof! Just like that, she’s gone.

That’s why I am here, telling you to get your soils tested for bacteria, viruses, fungi, nematodes and other pathogens before planting anything. Just like the tests for nutrients, this can be done by any of these organizations:

1. SoilCares Ltd
2. CropNuts Ltd
3. Ujuzi Kilimo
4. SGS Ltd
5. JKUAT

Test Soils & Taste Monies

Towards the end of my penultimate year in high school, I publicly renounced the Christian Religion. Although this had been the case for around 6 years by then, I had never indicated it to my parents.

Over those years I had explored all the churches I could find my way into. I said mass and blessed the Madonna with the Catholics, and observed Sabbath with the Adventists. I read a lot of those freely available Jehovah Witnesses material, chanted with at a Roho church-shackle and ate sacrament at the infamous Korogocho Legio Maria sanctuary.

I almost visited the Mormon Church in Buru Buru but couldn’t afford the KES 20 bus fare. The Korean Manmin Holiness Church offered free bus rides and so I attended their sermons in Umoja Estate. At Pumwani High School I thoroughly enjoyed the Friday late night inter-religious debates that often pitted Muslims Vs. Traditionalists Vs. Agnostics & Atheits Vs. Rastafarians Vs Christians Vs Other Christians.

It was a great time.

My father, like I am, was not a religious man at the time. He was also a soft-spoken, and therefore, did not really talk about the issue. He only became closer to the church some 2-3 years ago. In his last year, he even donated a piece of land for the construction of one.

My mother, on the other hand, is his polar opposite.

She, like I am, is very outspoken and, like most mothers are, is a religious woman.

When I finally did, she amassed a legion of able prayer warriors who laid their hands upon my 18-year old head, and fervently prayed. I never told her that that did not change a thing. After joining campus, she called every Saturday (she is an Adventist) to check whether I was going to the Lord’s House.

I would say I was just preparing for it.

The JKUAT Library

Lying, as you all know, is such an interesting thing, isn’t it? One could decide to attend a sermon and lie to their own selves that they believe, or they could lie to their own mothers. Which of these two burdens heavier on the soul, btw?

In my mind, the only place I would be preparing to go was a corner on the second floor of the JKUAT library.This is where I would spend one or two Saturday mornings in a month during my first year of university, combing through the dailies.

So on this fine morning in 2014 I had just sat at my favorite spot when I noticed a certain headline shouting at me. Its voice was too loud and it was hard ignoring the fact that it was literally yelling:

“Study shows acidic soils affecting food production countrywide”. 

I quickly went to it, picked the Standard Newspaper and went back to my corner. I read through it and learnt of how a study conducted in more than 150 sub-counties had revealed that soils in Kenya are becoming too acidic. This has hampered food production, particularly for the staple maize crop.

I had really forgotten about this article until I came across a couple of similar ones just this past week. Though one was on Nyamira and the other one spoke about Nyeri, they both had the same message: Soils are becoming too acidic and before long these vital food baskets will become unproductive.

AGRA estimates that up to 75% of cultivated soils in Africa are degraded.

Why is this so, I wondered.

After some asking around and a little studying, however, I realized why.

Up to 90% of Kenyan farmers do not conduct any fertility tests on their soils before planting. Such evaluations are done to ascertain the levels of macro-nutrients (Nitrogen, Phosphorus & potassium) as well as micro-nutrients (Zinc, Calcium, Magnesium, Boron etc) present in their soils.

With the results of such an analyses, one can be able to determine which kinds of fertilizers to apply on their soils as per the crop requirements. This would not only encourage good plant growth, but also protect the soil against chemical degradation.

What happens, instead, is that farmers make assumptions as to what their plant needs. These speculations are made with respect to the type of and quantity of fertilizers. Some ask their neighbors what they used, and also do the same.

Don’t do that.

Generally, they apply acidic Nitrogen-based fertilizers, with CAN and UAN being the preferred choice for many. DAP is also commonly used and even though it is alkaline, it leads to soil acidification over a long time since the ammonium compound is leached and nitrified. And since many farmers use these fertilizers in extremely large amounts, they end up heavily acidifying the soils.

This diagram shows how that happens:

Most crops grow within the narrow neutral pH range of 5 to 7. However, most soils in the country have, worryingly, dipped to as low as 3.5. High acidity is toxic to some plants as well as other organisms in the soil. This, over time, degrades the soil and once fertile places like Nyeri and Nyamira become unproductive.

That is why you need to conduct soil tests for fertility. Before you do so, however, there are a few things that you have to put in mind:

What Does a Fertility Test Detect?

The analyses include:

1. Chemical nutritional content (N, P, K, Ca, Fe, S, Cl, Mg, Bo, etc)
2. Level of Soil pH and electrical conductivity
3. The Cation Exchange Capacity (A measure of your soil’s ability to retain essential nutrients)
4. Levels of Organic matter
5. Estimation of soil texture, moisture levels, and bulk density
6. Specific analysis based on local conditions (e.g sodium for flood-prone areas

What are the Benefits?

Well, those are many. But just remember the following:

1. You become more aware of your soil conditions and are provided with tailor-made recommendations for fertilizer application and a soil correction program where necessary
2. This knowledge allows you to provide your crops with nutrients in sufficient amounts and avoid wastage of fertiliser
3. Well-nourished crops give you good produce which brings in more money while non-wastage saves you money. Both ways, you get money
4. It helps you conserve your soil. Which also, will get you more money in the long term.Who doesn’t want some money? The taste of money is desirable.

Who Does the Tests?

Now that we are in agreement that you want some money, here’s a list of some organizations that conduct soil tests at a small fee ( Usually KES 2500-5000):

1. SoilCares Ltd
2. CropNuts Ltd
3. Ujuzi Kilimo
4. SGS Ltd
5. JKUAT

On-farm Soil Sampling in Progress (Caroline Wambui|NMG)

 

The Taste of Clay

During her last trimester carrying our last born’s pregnancy, I used to spend a lot of time with my mother. It was during that first quarter of 2003 and Kenya had just elected Kibaki to the presidency. We were such a hopeful people, back then.

Former President Mwai Kibaki

Back then, the Kibaki government introduced free universal education in public schools. I was quickly transferred from the private one I was in and taken to the then relatively better equipped public one known as Tom Mboya Primary School. I was set to join Standard (Grade) Three.

For the sake of admission, joining the school at Standard 3 made the most sense. It was the last class in what we might describe as the elementary section of primary school. Getting a slot anywhere lower or higher than it was more difficult. Some parents moved their children a class higher or lower to secure a slot at the school.

The admission process was chaotic with parents scrambling to get their children in. There were three classes per stream, named for the three primary colors: Red, Green and Blue. Their metallic doors were colored accordingly. We were all packed into 3 Red and were more than happy to, for the first time, sit on proper seats.

During the first lesson I attended in January 2003, I was surprised to meet almost half the people from my previous school in the same class. Of course, I was not the only one who made the move to Tom Mboya Primary School. It was exciting, seeing all those old friends, the likes of Sylvia and Mbugua. Learners from other schools shared similar experiences, with unintended consequences.

The school recruited more Class Three pupils than it could handle. All one needed to get admission was evidence of birth in Kenya. There were too many kids of age for the available classes, but principals were bound presidential decree to admit all learners that had been registered in their records. They could not reject us after registration.

At some point, there were more than 100 learners in classrooms that were designed to carry 50. The school, therefore, came up with a compromise. Those pupils who had been at the school before the free education policy were given first priority alongside a small percentage of the new entrants.

This priority group would form the first batch of learners. They attended class during the morning sessions, running from 8 AM to the middle of midday. Afterwards, in the afternoon, the second batch would come in for lessons running up to 4 PM.  I was part of that second batch. It is how I ended up spending most of my mornings with Mum throughout the year 2003.

At the time she acted as a middle-woman between buyers of scrap shoe soles in Dandora and recycling plants at the Kariobangi Light Industries. We would wake up daily and go to a scrap metal/plastic dealer known as Wanyala to purchase the soles. We would then pre-process them by removing the fibers and selective burning before taking them to the industries for sale.

I noticed something weird during this time: Mum would consume a lot of rocks. I used to ask her, “Mommy, mommy, why do you eat rocks?”. She would laugh a little and respond with: “It’s the baby, he likes the taste of clay”. This went on until the boy was born in mid-April of that year. Till a few months ago, I had almost forgotten about this clay-eating habit.

Eating Clay

I work as an agronomist in Ukambani and interact with a wide variety of farmers. On this particular occasion, I went to inspect the farm of one who was planting some onions in Mwala. He has been farming since before I was born and he told me of how the productivity of his land was on a downward trend.

“I apply all these fertilizers but nothing comes out!”, he lamented.

I looked at him and asked whether he conducts any soil tests. The 70-year old veteran farmer looked at me for a while before declaring:

“Well, knowing the most fertile places to farm is easy. I just call a pregnant lady and she can spot the right place for me. The same clay that makes the fetus healthy is also good for the crop. And there is never a shortage of pregnant women, you know”.

He spotted how puzzled my face was and went ahead to explain that what exactly these ladies did: They had cravings for clay and it was often the case that the locations they selected their rocks from had the most fertile soils.

He went into a long tale of how even in the days of his grandfather that was how it was done and concluded by declaring: “The taste of clay used to tell all, these days it doesn’t seem to work, though”.

The farmer was wrong in his approach.

One can tell whether crops can grow on a certain piece of land by sight, we all have common sense. I am not too sure about how that is possible by taste though as the farmer claimed. In the long run, however, these are inaccurate techniques that can never yield reliable results. Too many farmers plant without fully understanding the makeup of their soils, which is a huge mistake.

You need sensors for this work, senses can wait. 

Before one sets up a farming enterprise, they need to conduct a series of tests that will help them determine important parameters about their farm. This is important to anyone who wants to establish an agribusiness that will optimize the soil and other resources.

This is the thinking behind the next series of blogs that I’ll share with you. They revolve around these three items:

1. Soil Testing: Fertility Evaluation
2. Soil Testing: Pathogen Analysis
3. Water Testing: Salinity, pH, BOD, etc.

I hope you will join me on this new journey and learn a thing or two from it.

Soil Samples

Mutiso & The Flying Matatus

Before his coffin was made, John Mutiso wanted to be a matatu artist. Mutiso and I were class mates way back in primary school and naturally became friends due to our common interest in the then- emerging art form. He was the best artist I’ve ever known and his colorful artworks would mesmerize me.

Before his cold, lifeless body was lowered into the hot, dry earth in Makueni, Mutiso and I would spend days discussing new matatu designs. We would spend hour on the roadside after school hours, just admiring the passing buses and getting inspiration for our drawings. One day, Mutiso said, his graffitis would decorate matatus.

Before Death icily threw him into a comma he never came back from, Mutiso shared with me a most amazing idea for the new set of drawings we were planning to collaborate on. We, unfortunately, never got to draw the flying matatus we intended to.

It was on a Monday during the 9 Am lesson.

As the Maths Teacher was busy speaking in tongues at the front, Mutiso slid a book towards me. He was seated to my right and smiled at me as he did so, revealing rheumy eyes. His sickly smile still haunts me today.

That is the very day his companionship with Death begun.

The book was brightly colored and the front cover was written, “Njamba Nene and the Flying Bus”. Just below the title was the name of its author: Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

The next time I saw Mutiso, he was lying in his little brown, wooden casket.

It is 10 years since the book was handed to me, and its message is still as potent as it was then. Only that this time the message I got was not how to draw a matatu with eagle wings. It was something entirely different.

Over the years I have abandoned my artistic dreams and have become an agriculturalist. Mutiso would be disappointed in me. But well, such is life.

“How can we die of hunger when there is plenty of meat here?” Njamba Nene asked his peers. Reading the passage felt as if Ngugi was directing it at me. I hid my face in shame and looked around, maybe someone was looking at me and seeing my guilt.

After conforming that there was no one snooping around, I read on.

What made me cringe while reading this statement was the fact that it reminded me of some news reports I have been reading from time to time. The most appalling one was released on World Food Day 2017 by the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

It detailed that at least 3.4 million Kenyans were facing starvation.

Courtesy: NMG/Alice Othieno

Before I could even think of how this was possible, I remembered a visit I had made to the African orphan Crops Consortium offices in Nairobi (AOCC). According to experts at the AOCC, one of the major reasons why Kenya, and most African countries for that matter are unable to feed their populations is abandonment of local varieties.

There are numerous plant varieties that are extremely underutilized. This has led to a substantial population of the continent being undernourished. As Njamba Nene would say, we are dying of hunger whereas we have plenty of meat. It is with this in mind that the AOCC has set nutrition as its core pillar.

Through its activities, it helps farmers identify the right food crops, breed them appropriately and produce quality products that will be used to counter issues such as hidden hunger, malnutrition, and hunger. However, this is not an easy task and requires effort from all involved parties.

So I read on, with the hope that Njamba Nene, our Big Hero, might provide me with an idea of how to go about it. I begged and begged, turning from one page from another. I was almost giving up when all of a sudden he started speaking once again:

“O.K I’ll explain how we can help ourselves. We must first of all find out where we have come from, and where we are now. Then and only then can we know which way to go”.

After hearing these words, I fully understood what must be done. I’ll be sharing these with you in the next few stories. Just as the Lawino’s song drove the first three stories in this series, Njamba Nene’s Bus will drive (pun totally intended) the last three.

As for Mutiso, something tells me he’s still flying on a colorful matatu with the angels.

The Flying Matatu, drawn using Mutiso’s Technique.