Category Archives: agriculture

chadian ban on charcoal ludicrous

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charcoal1

On January 16th the government of Chad banned the use of charcoal in the country – without providing any sensible alternatives. Worried about desertification in the arid Central African state, the government announced that it was banning all charcoal making from freshly cut trees. Chadians can still make charcoal from dead wood.

While I appreciate the need to stop the southward spread of the Sahara, I think the government went too far on this one. It is ridiculous that the governmnet of Chad (of all countries) can suddenly wake up and decide that it is time to stop using charcoal fuel and switch to propane – or whatever other alternative for that matter. Banning charcoal use will not stem desertification. Planting trees, having a decent irrigation plan and being serious about population control and smart ways of using scarce water resources will. Merely banning people from using charcoal or firewood will not cut it. The truth of the matter is that the vast majority of Africans still depend on woodfuel for their daily energy needs. Switching to more environment-friendly fuel sources will take time.

I know that the Chadians and the other countries in the Sahel are especially on heightened alert with regard to desertification but this was surely not the way to go. How many Chadians can afford propane? How many Chadians have gas burners? How many Chadians have viable alternatives to charcoal? These are the questions the men in N’djamena should have asked before unilaterally banning the use of charcoal in the country.

why am I not surprised

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The idiot who came up with the idea of selling maize to Kenyans at two different prices should be fired. This person should be fired for two reasons. Firstly, because the plan he came up with does not make any economic sense. It is common sense that prices find their own level. You cannot have the same commodity being sold at different prices to different people – unless this was backed up by other illusions like product differentiation and the like. Selling plain maize at different prices was simply daft.

Secondly, this person gave the government an image problem. By admitting to the country that there are two classes of Kenyans, the poor and the rich, this person betrayed the government’s reluctance to even the playing field for all Kenyans. Give cheap food to the poor in the slums and rural areas so they don’t litter the streets with their protests and keep the normal prices at the hypermarkets around town. Two Kenyas for two classes of Kenyans.

That the whole thing has failed does not surprise me. I doubt if even he government officials implementing it thought it would succeed. But they did it anyway, because the egg-head politicians, drunk with vulgar populism said so. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE?

That Kenya cannot guarantee itself food security in the 21st century is a big shame. This is something that people did – in desert regions – 10,000 years ago. How hard can it be? And then to respond to the food shortage with such silly ideas?

I know my lament is in vain, for the most part at least. Nobody will take the blame for this mess. Just like nobody took the blame for the lack of planning that created the food shortage to begin with. We – a nation of nearly forty million – shall continue to be run like some village in the middle of some rainforest where the chief and his henchmen do (very badly) whatever they want and nobody raises a finger. It is a sad world we live in.

ps: it turns out that the government has engaged a reverse gear on the new (anti) Media Law. Kudos to the media for drumming up support from the public.

African Institute of Science and Technology to open in Abuja

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Those of you that regularly read my blog know that I have this fixation with the idea of an African hegemon in the form of either Nigeria or South Africa that would provide visionary leadership for the rest of the continent. I was therefore delighted when I learned that the first African Institute of Science and Technology campus will open in Abuja, Nigeria, this coming July. The university will be part of a pan-African alliance of similar institutions that will be bastions of knowledge and research. The AIST will be modeled in a similar way to India’s legendary IIT and will consist of four campuses in the East, West, North and South of the African continent.

The initiative is the brain child of the Nelson Mandela Institution and will focus on the creation of scientific solutions to Africa-specific problems. The core courses offered by AIST will be in science and engineering although I see expansion into the social sciences once the demand builds up; after all, Africa needs all kinds of solutions, not just scientific ones. These are really exciting times……..

It is commendable that Nigeria provided the seed money for the project and that it will be the first host of such a high profile institution. Other potential candidates are South Africa or Botswana for the Southern campus, Kenya (once they get their house in order, if not Rwanda would be the next best thing) in the East and possibly Libya or Tunisia in the North. AIST, on top of being in itself a centre of excellence, will provide competition to other African universities that have been wallowing in mediocrity due to lack of competition and political meddling in the universities.

kibaki narrows Raila lead

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Kibaki has narrowed Raila’s lead to just 8 percentage points. Raila’s lead has gone down to about 500,000 votes. There are still more results expected to come in from the Rift Valley and other parts of Nyanza that had irregularities. Central Kenya came out almost 100% for Kibaki.

It is not yet over. Not until all the results come in. This election, as was predicted, is going to be a close one despite ODM’s visible confidence in the likes of Ruto and Balala.

thoughts on africa’s population figures

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The other day I came across some stats that got me thinking. It is apparent that at the current rate of population growth, Africa’s population will double in the next half century (Even after having discounted for malaria and – according to the Economist – the over-estimated AIDS figures). This can either be a blessing or a curse.

It could be a blessing due to the fact the non-viability of some African states is because they are too sparsely populated and do not have big enough internal markets to support robust economies or generate enough revenue in terms of taxes to pay for effective government. Therefore, a big population would bring more good than harm. I am not saying that the solution to Africa’s poverty and lack of development is a higher population growth; I am just making the observation that populous Ethiopia is more viable as a sovereign state than huge but thinly populated Chad or Niger.

The negative effects, however, are more real and immediate. As it stands, Africa cannot feed its entire population – hence its current reliance on food imports and relief to meet the balance. Furthermore, due to rather dismal economic performance over the last four decades, the population growth rate has far outstripped economic growth. As a consequence, Africa is the only region in the world where per capita incomes have declined since the seventies. The ideal solution to this problem would be to simply increase the rate of economic growth to surpass that of population, but this cannot just be made possible with a magic wand. It will take time.

The situation therefore calls for a clear and well formulated population policy. If Africa is to take off economically and improve its deplorable average living standards, it has to arrest the high rate of population growth (continental average fertility is more than 5 children per woman, the world average is below 3). This need not be some China-like thing, I believe that with the right incentives to families and insistence on longer and better education of girls the situation can be changed. Studies have shown that, on average, better educated women tend to have fewer, healthier and better educated children.

In the future though, with proper planning, I think it is in the continent’s best interest to have a big population. By some estimates, Africa can support upwards of 1.5 billion people with its 28% arable land (China has 13%). A big and economically vibrant population will not only be invaluable in reducing the continent’s over-reliance on foreign trade (internal trade accounts for paltry 10%) but also for strategic security purposes.

the rising cost of food, can africa cope?

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This week’s economist newspaper has a piece on the issue of “agflation” – the recent upsurge in global food prices. The rise in food prices should be a wake up call to least developed countries whose populations mostly depend on food aid to keep body and soul together.

The fact of the matter is that as food prices rise, the cost of sending food aid will go up and if the donors who distribute this food do not get additional funding they may have to cut their budgets – meaning more poor people in the world will have to die of undernutrition related deaths.

But can this be avoided? The answer to this question, I can dare say with “high confidence,” is a simple yes, and here is why.

Ideally, rising food prices should be good news for countries who still consider agriculture  to be the backbone of their economies. (mostly in Africa and the rest of the global south) What this means is that these countries will have a chance to earn more forex from their exports of wheat, maize and what not. But this is not the case. Most of these agri-economies are net food importers because their arable land potential is not being maximised. This is largely due to poor farming practices in the underdeveloped countries and food subsidies in the global north that make farming not so attractive to entrepreneurs.

The WTO, among other such international institutions, has failed to resolve this adverse state of affairs but it is my hope that may be now that prices have gone up Washington and Brussels will finally cut off their subsidy-addicted farmers and let Adam Smith’s invisible hand do its work in determining returns on agriculture and thus give global southerners a fairer chance. At the same time, governments of the underdeveloped agri-economies should strive to be food sufficient – like Malawi has recently done, without much help from outside.