Production Practices and Quality Assessment of Food Crops. Vol. 1

IMPROVEMENT OF GRAIN LEGUME PRODUCTION IN
SEMI-ARID KENYA THROUGH BIOLOGICAL NITROGEN
FIXATION: THE EXPERIENCE WITH TEPARY BEAN
(PHASEOLUS ACUTIFOLIUS A. GRAY VAR. LATIFOLIUS)
CHRIS A. SHISANYA
Department of Geography, P.O. Box 43844, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Food security concerns in sub-Saharan Africa
Although agriculture is the main stay for the majority of households in Africa,
food security still remains the greatest challenge. There seems to be no prospects
for sustainable agricultural growth for increased productivity and African agriculture
has been ‘diagnosed’ as having a ‘chronic and anaemic rather than episodic
growth performance’. According to the World Bank (2001), agriculture share of
gross domestic product (GDP) in Africa ranges from 3.6–63.6% but with very low
annual average percentage growth ranging from –4.9 to 7.7% (Table 1). Generally,
small-scale farmers who produce for subsistence dominate the agricultural sector
in Africa. Indeed, a large proportion of farm households aim simply to produce
enough food to meet household needs and many often fail to meet even this limited
goal. According to Bongaarts (1994), there are 186 million hungry people in Africa.
Between 1950 and 1995, Africa’s population grew at an average annual rate of
2.6% and more than trebled, reaching 561 million. This rate of increase is historically
unprecedented among major regions of the world over comparable periods
of time (Bloom and Sachs, 1998). Despite the fact that there is no relationship
between prevalence of hunger in a given country and its population the challenge
is to produce enough food to feed the populations. For example, for every densely
populated and hungry nation like Bangladesh or Haiti, there is a sparsely populated
and hungry nation like Brazil and Indonesia.
The causes of hunger in Africa should be viewed from two angles: long-term
and short-term. In the long-term, poor populations have limited income and are
unable to purchase or produce, on continuous basis, the amount and quality of
food needed for good health. Many people are too poor to buy food that is available
or lack ability and resources to grow it themselves (Lappe et al., 1998).
On the other hand, short-term food insecurity is frequently the result of crisis (e.g.
civil strife and HIV/AIDS pandemic) or seasonal food shortages due to factors
such as drought. In many African nations, the drive to social developments is
being greatly undermined by human capital degradation caused by the HIV/AIDS
pandemic, rising armed conflicts and civil strife, ethnic and cultural upheavals
and the burden of staggering national debt, all of which have become a major
factor in food emergencies. For example, FAO (1999) reported several countries
facing exceptional food emergencies (Table 2).
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R. Dris and S. M. Jain (eds.), Production Practices and Quality Assessment of Food Crops,
Vol. 1, “Preharvest Practice”, pp. 163–188.
© 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.