food security — Ethnic Supplies

Are you kidding me?

Happy New year to you all. We are very excited about the prospects the new year is due to bring and I will be telling you about those in later blog.

Back to the title to today’s blog, before I hit the road to East Africa last month I watched a BBC Horizon programme called How many people can live on Planet earth

What really caught my eye about this programme was the issue of food security, something that affects the communities within which I work and one that I often write abotu here

Of concern to me was the fact that folk in the west and Arab countries too are buying up chunks of the developing world to grow food for their own populaitons. This food is exported out of the developing countries to the developed regions leaving the developing countries to rely on FOOD AID! How ridiculous is that, I ask?

Am I missing the point here folk? I was surprised to learn too that a country like Uganda one of the poorest is the second largest contributor to the FOOD AID programme in the world next to Canada! Are you kidding me? Why isn’t someone feeding the street kids on the streets on Kampala? None of this makes any sense to me folk as several people in Uganda told me how expensive food has actually become in Uganda. But that said I also learned that the food growers in Uganda have tapped into the rather lucrative food market of the southern Sudan!

Well with the world population set to grow, the debate around food security will continue!

Happy new year!

Going Bananas

The debate about Hillary’s Clinton’s real reason for being in Africa continues. Some have argued that she has not done enough to address human rights abuse as well as worker’s rights. You will recall my recent post about this and if you missed here is the link

The choice of countries that Mrs Clinton chose to visit have mostly one thing common EXTRACTIVE COMMODOTIES. However according to this article the agricultural money promised has meant that banana barons have strengthened their hold on Mozambique and Angola.

I appreciate their observation about the role of bananas in the day today life of most African countries, in fact certain tribes in Uganda the only thing that passess as food is Matoke a type of banana that is boiled/steamed, mashed then served with any type of stew. In some families this is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner

Matoke

This type of banana is facing a different kind of challenge compared that, that is of interest to the like of Chiquita, the BANANA WILT. This as I understand is a type of bacteria that affects banana plants and kills off whole plantations and thus threatening food security. In countries where bananas play an important role in day to day life this a real threat and work has been under way to develop a super banana plant that can resist the WILT. That fight has not gone unnoticed by those that object to GM food.

Having read the article, I wonder if the author is concerned that if bananas, if Africa are exported to the West then this affects the local economy that depends on the banana? I also wonder whether how much the author knows about bananas . Bananas come in different kinds and each kind almost always has a specific use, the bananas for juice and beer can be eaten as fruit ripe but the taste is awful, unless cooked, even then there are an acquired taste. Whislt the bananas that some is like to come across in the West are for instance not suitable for cooking, the same way you would cook Matoke.

The degree to which the activities of the likes of Chiquita will impact of the banana market will depend on the types of bananas any given country has, as well as how the workers are treated.

Although the article has a valid point regarding homelessness in many african countries I am not entirely sure I follow the Banana point!

Have you got a banana opnion? Please share it