Wangari Maathai, Ellen Wilson, media in Kenya (credit: Jeff Haskins)

The Dr. Maathai-inspired Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign planted 4 billion trees as of yesterday. It started in 2007.

At a conference in Nairobi that focused on how more trees on farms could help reverse climate change, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Wangari Maathai had a story to tell.

It was about a fire that broke out in a huge forest.

“All of the animals are coming out of the forest very disheartened,” she said. “They were saying, ‘Let me leave, as there is nothing we can do.’ They came to the edge of the forest—all except the hummingbird.

“The hummingbird said, ‘I’m not going anywhere. I want to do something about this fire.’ The hummingbird went to a spring and brought back a drop of water and put it on the fire. The bird kept going back and forth putting a drop of water on the fire. All of the other animals stayed on the edge of the forest—even those with larger beaks which could bring more water. They said, ‘What are you doing? You are too little. Come and join us.’ The hummingbird kept going.”

Maathai said that when it comes to growing trees on farms and reforesting in Kenya, every citizen has a role to play. For example, she said, farmers should “not wait for the government” to dig trenches to allow water to sink into the ground rather than run off and strip away the top soil. They should harvest rain water on their land, she said. People should plant trees from large canopied trees to small shrubs.

“Every one of us can be a hummingbird,” she said.

Margaret Musambi (credit: Dominic Chavez)

MUMIAS, Kenya — Margaret Musambi is one of those rare people who likes to expand her job responsibilities to have a greater impact on people’s lives. She is an extension agent for Kenya’s Ministry of Agriculture, based here in the western part of the country.

Musambi’s passion in the last few years has been to teach farmers the multiple uses of soybeans, emphasizing their nutritional benefits. She has shown farmers how to make soy milk, soy yogurt, soy cakes, soy sausages, even soy meatballs.

“Soy is wonderful,” she said one day recently, sitting with a group of farmers.

But one of her more creative projects has been to introduce soy to a group of people infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. In Mumias, a town of about 30,000 people, she has begun to work with 50 members belonging to an HIV/AIDS support group.

Helped by a small grant from the US Agency for International Development, the group purchased 50-kilogram bags of soybeans. She told the group members, most of whom are taking anti-retroviral drugs to fight AIDS, that they should incorporate more soy into their diets. She also taught them how to make soy products, which the members now sell in local markets.

“These people are becoming so healthy,” Musambi said. “Their drugs are helping them, and the soybeans are as well. It’s true. You eat soy and it will cheer you up.”

President Kibaki

Kenyan businessmen and women, and political friends of the new power-sharing coalition government, filled the large ballroom of Nairobi’s Grand Regency Hotel. Reporters and camera crews bustled about, fighting over position. Black, gold, and brown drapes adorned the edges of the room, along with signs and banners of organizations taking part in the announcement.

This was the launch of the first major national partnership to provide small-scale Kenyan farmers with $50 million USD in low-interest loans. But the excitement in the room was over something else: the attendance of President Mwai Kibaki and the new Prime Minister Raila Odinga. The two leaders were attending the event as a show of unity and commitment to the country and its farmers–the backbone of the Kenyan economy.

Everyone in the room was in support of this program for farmers, but what people were really waiting to see was the interaction between Kibaki and Odinga, following the violent outcome of the December 2007 elections. The two men had run against each other for president, and the disputed results led to weeks of turmoil that killed more than 1,100 people and laid bare the country’s deep divisions.

Loud “presidential” music blared through the public announcement system, announcing the arrival of both men and their entourages, followed by an elaborate musical program with songs and dances for the royal audience. Then Odinga took the podium first.

“You could say I was ambushed,’’ he said.

I wondered where he was going with this.

“I was not prepared to make remarks here today,’’ he said.

Phew, I thought, a lighthearted opening joke. The crowd laughed. You could tell they took to him.

“A nation that can feed its own people is a better nation. A hungry person is an angry person; we want to deal with the hunger so as to be able to comprehensively deal with the anger,” Odinga said.

This was more of what I was expecting.

The Prime Minister described the age-old adage that if you teach a man how to fish, he can sustain himself. He said giving handouts to farmers is the same as giving them a fish–as opposed to teaching them. “Farmers don’t want handouts! They need sustainable solutions. That’s why this program is important!” he railed.

Odinga then gave a gracious introduction for Kibaki.

As they passed each other on the stage, they nodded at each other and almost smiled. There seemed to be some positive chemistry. I compared this to what I see on the front pages of Kenyan newspapers on a daily basis: static pictures of two men in their dark suits. The newspapers made them always seem at odds. This scene on stage surprised me; I wasn’t prepared for a friendly exchange, but then again I shouldn’t have expected a showdown either.

Kibaki described the perfect storm of factors contributing to the current food crisis including oil process and climate change. He also spoke of the 3.5 million bags of maize destroyed during the post-election violence.

“I appeal to all concerned, give peace a chance,” he said. “We need to forget what happened…and move forward together.”

There was an awkward silence in the room.

Kibaki continued: “I declare Kilimo Biashara partnership officially landed. We have come together, thank you for this effort,” Kibaki said.

That was it. No one was going to be against a loan program for farmers, especially now at a time of rising food prices. But here in Kenya, and elsewhere, so much depends on whether the government can effectively implement programs. I was happy to see the positive chemistry between the two leaders in person, and now Kenyan farmers wait to see if they deliver.

Kenya Cows (credit: Dominic Chavez)

NAIROBI – The pace of life here is as it always has been–lots of traffic jams, crowded downtown sidewalks, tens of thousands of people selling things by the roadside. Tourists also have returned in high numbers this summer. It is easy to forget that just seven months ago the waves of post-election violence raised serious questions about the country’s future.

But the impacts linger, just out of view. This morning, I was interviewing Machira Gichohi, managing director of the Kenya Dairy Board, and he brought up how the violence affected the dairy industry.

Much of the violence, he noted, was concentrated in the Rift Valley, which produces roughly half of the country’s milk. During the month-long upheaval, “farmers’ animals were stolen, infrastructure was destroyed, and people just scattered.”

In December 2007, just before the violent outbreak, the country was producing 1.2 million liters of milk per day. But during the violence–January and February–output dropped by half, to 600,000 liters per day. Now, Gichohi said, it had rebounded to 850,000 liters daily.

It is the cold season here, and dairy cows are producing less milk than during warmer times. So it seemed that the dairy industry was making a fairly swift rebound, and that in a few months it was conceivable to approach the pre-violence numbers.

But Gichohi said it wouldn’t be so easy.

“It will take us one to two years to get back to where it was,” he said. “As our prime minister said in London, ‘Kenyans have gone to hell and we don’t want to go back.’ That’s how we feel. We hope those crazy days don’t come back.”

Rice field (credit: Jeff Haskins)

About an hour drive from Kampala, in a place called Namulonge, you’ll find Hadji Wanonda, a Ugandan farmer, who grows locally adapted and resilient varieties of rice on his one-acre plot of land.

For years, Hadji planted cassava, maize and a few other crops for his family to eat. Now with improved rice varieties provided to him by local agricultural research institute, Hadji can make up to US$800 in a three month period selling his harvest in the local markets. This represents a massive increase in income for him and, more recently, Hadji has been able to employ men and women in his community to help out with farm work.

Hadji’s story is part of a larger effort to boost African rice production and ensure self-sufficiency for the sake of Africa’s food security. The demand for rice in sub-Saharan Africa is double the rate of population growth; consumption is growing faster than that of any other major food staple. But instead of finding ways to substantially increase local production, countries have depended on more costly imports.

Hadji uses rice varieties called “Nerica,” a resilient, high-yielding cross of African and Asian rice. Breeders of Nerica rice won the World Food Prize in 2004. Nerica is not restricted to growing in paddies, thus enabling African farmers to grow rice in places that no one before thought possible with no irrigation. If this kind of public research and development could be applied more widely, Africa could be more self-sufficient and depend a little less on others for its food supply.

Farmer and children (credit: Bee Wuethrich)

It is the rainy season, and there is no rain. We take the road toward Monkey Bay, and pass a pick-up truck, people wave wildly. The driver stops the car; it is Justice and Eddie who have jumped out of the pick-up, and who run toward us. “Forgive me if I am tired today,” Justice says as he settles into the back seat. “I returned this morning at 3:00 a.m. from a funeral in my home village.” His cousin’s daughter, four years old, dead of malaria.

We drive. Through Mangochi, past the Hotchkiss gun, across the Shire River bridge, and wind up the hills west of Lake Malawi, long and dusty. Dustier still the dirt road that branches off, abandoning thoughts of trade with Mozambique to cross a plateau crisp with brown dry leaves and shriveled ears of maize.

It is nearing harvest time, the hungry season, when last year’s stores of food are running out, cash is short, and it is not yet time to bring in the harvest. It is like being on an ocean with nothing to drink, these endless fields of drought-plagued maize.

According to recent newspaper reports, people are beginning to eat seed processed for planting—fumigated with chemicals to protect it from insects. And they are selling the fertilizer purchased with vouchers to raise cash to buy food.

“I bought my mother a sack of maize for 2000 kwacha,” a man tells me. “It is a 100 percent increase in price.”

Then, look at this. The farmer leads us through his village, over rutted roads. Green in an ocean of brown whispering leaves. We see a field of maize taller and greener than the rest. An abundance of big cobs jutting off of each strong stalk. The farmer has planted a different seed than his neighbors, an improved drought resistant variety. He sells the seed in his village store to farmers who travel miles on foot or bicycle. Most farmers purchase it with vouchers issued by the government. It is known as “Champale” or poundable, the hard outer kernel lends itself to be ground into maize flour, and its yield is 30 percent higher than the local variety. As the farmer shows off his field, his family gathers, many of his 14 sons and daughters. They are smiling, his wife give us a thumbs up.

Demonstration plot (credit: Bee Wuethrich)

The seed farm that grows this improved seed sold 50,000 packets this past year—enough to feed an additional 150,000 people. They sold it through a network of 29 agro-dealers, spread out across a region that encompasses one million people.

One of those agro-dealers used his income to buy a car, so that he could distribute the seed to another three outlets. The route took him half a day and covered some 30 kilometers. Before the start of the growing season, he sold 2,000 sacks of seed.

“I know the people,” he says. “This area is where my home is. I want to assist. That is why I spend my money on fuel. In other areas there is drought. But in my area, because the farmers got the seeds early, they are going to survive.”

For now, success in Malawi’s green revolution is measured in survival.

Editor’s Note: This story was reported in March 2008.