Gains Against Hunger Take Time

Originally published in the 2011 Hunger Report.

by Sandra Bunch and Paul Guenette

ACDI/VOCA

ACDI/VOCA’s Kenya Maize Development Program (KMDP) offers important lessons on making food security programs work for the people they are meant to serve. The program nearly tripled—and in some places quadrupled—smallholder yields and increased the net earnings of some 370,000 farmers, nearly 30 percent of whom are women.

Adequate time, funding, and flexibility all contributed to the agriculture and food security gains achieved in Kenya. Still, most critical to success were the Kenyans we worked with and the relationships we built along the way.

A Long View and Flexibility

Everyone wants quick results—and rightly so. Approximately 25,000 people die every day because of a lack of food. But our experience at ACDI/VOCA suggests that successful agricultural and economic development programs need between seven and 10 years for sustainable changes to emerge.

Fortunately, USAID gave us both time and flexibility. USAID originally funded KMDP in 2003 as an $11.2 million, four-year program to increase rural household incomes. Based on the program’s success, USAID increased funding to cover seven years.

Flexible program design and the extended timeframe allowed ACDI/VOCA to work with farmers and local partners to minimize risks and, as feasible, develop opportunities out of challenges. For example, fertilizer costs for farmers doubled between 2006 and 2010. ACDI/VOCA worked with farmers’ groups to partner with the Kenya Seed Company, which purchased the inputs in bulk for the farmers, helping them realize savings through economies of scale.

Program flexibility also helped staff respond to unexpected setbacks. Post-election violence displaced thousands of Kenyan farmers in 2008 and led to the destruction of large stocks of maize. USAID allowed ACDI/VOCA to adjust the program’s priorities to address the needs of displaced people, such as organizing mobile counseling clinics for victims of violence and integrating peace-building trainings into our Farming as a Family Business curriculum.

KMDP’s long view and flexibility further allowed ACDI/VOCA to develop community self-help groups, local farmers’ groups, and industry associations critical to leveling the playing field between rural communities and outside markets. Initially, KMDP supported 18 associations. As the program drew to an end, it was working with 80 associations representing approximately 250,000 farmers. Several groups have already used their new skills to apply for additional grants to develop specific expertise in areas like livestock artificial insemination and irrigation technologies.

Relationships and Trust

ACDI/VOCA’s group capacity-building efforts also strengthened local relationships and sparked innovation among groups. For example, as farmers increasingly dealt with new brokers, they had a difficult time distinguishing between unscrupulous dealers and honest traders. Based on farmer group discussions, KMDP helped to establish the Highway Cereal Traders and Marketing Brokers Association, which set itself apart as fair traders with better services.

Perhaps most important, programs that achieve sustainable change are those that manage to tap the courage of local people willing to embrace change. Kenyan farmer and KMDP staff member Rosebena Cherono Tektuk is one such person.

The 10th of 12 children, Tektuk studies agricultural education and extension at the nearby Egerton University. Bucking tradition, her father allocated her two hectares of his land. She uses the profit from the crops she grows to help pay her tuition. She also runs an agrovet store in her village to supplement her income.

Based in Njoro in southwest Kenya, Tektuk is in charge of six farmer groups. She has trained farmers in Farming as a Family Business and uses her own farm as a demonstration plot. In 2008, farmers in her area were able to make their first delivery of maize into the grain warehouse receipts system at Lesiolo Grain Handlers, Ltd., earning a profit of $10 per bag, and these farmers have pledged at least 5,000 bags for the next season.

Development is about changing people’s lives. It may seem obvious, but in the thick of foreign aid debates, it’s a fact we too often forget. Tektuk had the courage to change her life. And through her work with KMDP, she is helping others find the courage to change their lives as well.

Local Innovation

“[Farmers] are not risk takers,” says Julius Thuku, who like many Kenyan farmers was wary of trying new agricultural practices. “But I try hard at what I’m doing and the results will prove I am doing it from my own strength.”

KMDP included several innovations that were helpful in strengthening a farmer’s hand:

• Farming as a Family Business. A local gender analysis found household dynamics to be at the root of slow and/or failed adoption of new and improved farming practices and technologies. As a result, ACDI/VOCA and its partners adapted the farming business training curriculum to address household roles and promote collective efforts between men and women in farm enterprises.


• Warehouse Receipts Program. The Warehouse Receipts Program emerged as a private-public answer to farmers’ storage and credit problems. Producers store their grain in secure warehouses and use the warehouse receipts as collateral to obtain credit. Although many banks were reluctant to provide credit based on grain as collateral, our staff worked with Equity Bank, a Kenyan institution, to develop a financial product appropriate for the community.


• Market data and delivery. A major problem for Kenyan farmers is the lack of access to timely and accurate market information. KMDP partnered with KACE and Safaricom to establish a network of market information centers that convey price and trade information for local and regional markets.


• Kenya Maize Handbook. KMDP trainings were a key part of the program’s success, with 90 percent of targeted farmers trained during the project’s lifecycle. To develop a sustainable way to ensure that the knowledge transfer continued, KMDP staff worked with the private sector, research community, universities, and government organizations to publish the Kenya Maize Handbook, a summary of Kenya’s maize production process and industry trends.


• Agricultural Business Fair. A key focus of KMDP has been to stimulate demand for agricultural business services by linking farmers and their groups to the private sector. With an eye toward sustainability, KMDP staff partnered with Moi University, the Eastern Africa Grain Council, and the Cereal Growers Association to facilitate the country’s first maize industry business fair in 2003. Since then, the business fair has become an annual regional event, with 80 exhibitors and 25,000 people participating in 2009.

Sandra Bunch is the Senior Director of Public Relations & Communications at ACDI/VOCA. Earlier in her career, she was editor of the Bread for the World Institute Hunger Report.

Paul Guenette is Technical Managing Director of Agribusiness at ACDI/VOCA. From 1992 to 1996, he worked as Chief of Party for a USAID project in Kenya.

Read other 2011 Hunger Report articles.