Year: 2013

Ethiopia’s poor turn to the humble potato in quest for food security

Dessie Zuria is one of the most critically food insecure woredas (districts) in Ethiopia. About 90% of the population is dependent on rain-fed agriculture in the area, where drought is a perennial problem. The high altitude (upwards of 2 400m) restricts the crops that can be grown, and farmers have been reduced to growing a single staple – barley.

The majority of the area’s craggy, mountainous terrain is not suitable for agriculture, and soil degradation has reduced the productivity of much of the remaining land. Unsurprising, the local population is highly susceptible to water shortages, and the rate of chronic malnutrition – a staggeringly high 54% – is 10% above the national average.

However, the humble potato – previously unknown in this region of Ethiopia – is helping to transform the lives of thousands of the poorest farmers.

“I was dependent on barley, which is highly vulnerable to the shortage of rain, and my income was very, very minimal,” explained Seid Muhie (30), a farmer from Dessie Zuria’s Gelsha kebele parish. “I was ready to sell my land, settle in a nearby town and become a day labourer. But after growing potatoes, I changed my plans.”

Muhie was only able to grow 75kg of barley a year on his 1.5 hectare plot of land, earning just 450 birr ($24). He found it difficult to support his family. But four years ago, with the help of the NGO Concern Worldwide, he started planting potatoes.

“The harvest was very good. I produced 40 50kg sacks of potatoes from the same plot of land, and I sold them for 170 birr each sack. I was surprised by the income that I could get from the potatoes,” Seid said.

(Potatoes have become a staple food in the Dessie Zuria district. Pic: AFP)

In 2007, Concern started a potato pilot project with just 16 households. The yields from that first season were high, and soon the charity was inundated with requests for seed potatoes. So far 10 000 farmers in Dessie Zuria have benefitted from the project, and the woreda administration has rolled the programme out to a further 7 000 smallholders.

“The potato is now becoming a main crop in Dessie Zuria. And nutrition has improved,” said Concern project manager Merid Fantaye.

Seid can attest to this. His family now eats potatoes at least four times a week – daily, if there is a food shortage. “The potato is a solution for hunger,” he said. “If there is no injera [a flat unleavened bread that is the staple in much of Ethiopia] we don’t worry.”

World hunger, vulnerability to food shortages
Though global hunger has declined by one-third since 1990, about 842-million people are still chronically undernourished. According to the 2013 global hunger index (GHI), published this week, levels of hunger in 19 countries – the majority of them in sub-Saharan Africa – are alarming or extremely alarming, and the overall level of hunger in the world remains serious.

The authors of the GHI, Concern, the German NGO Welthungerhilfe, and the International Food Policy Research Institute, blamed the continued vulnerability to food shortages on unpredictable shocks – from storms and droughts to high food prices and political instability – to which the world’s poorest people are continually exposed.

They have called for a wider focus on building resilience to ensure that communities and households are able to deal with the short-term stresses that push them from subsistence into crisis.

Crop diversification – which includes the introduction of apples and pears as well as potatoes – offers a way to build resilience, and is one small part of the integrated development programme that Concern has been implementing in Dessie Zuria and nearby Delanta. Working with the poorest people in these highly impoverished communities, the project focuses on watershed management, small-scale irrigation, the provision of clean water supplies, health and sanitation education, child-feeding techniques, and the economic empowerment of women through microfinancing and self-help groups.

“If you knock on the door of one of the poorest households you can find … food insecurity, water, sanitation and hygiene problems, health problems, inequality and other things. To address these issues, a multi-sectoral approach is very important,” said Endalamaw Belay, north area co-ordinator for Concern.

Belay is convinced that this integrated strategy has improved the resilience of farmers in Dessie Zuria. “Previously our beneficiaries had nothing, so they would migrate to another area,” he said. “But currently they have a better capacity to resist if there is a drought in the future.”

Certainly the residents of Atinit Mesberia kebele are now better able to cope with the failure of rains or other shocks. The construction of terracing on the high peak above the neighbourhood and the building of a small irrigation canal have reaped dividends. The risk of flash flooding has reduced, soil degradation has been halted, and productivity has increased for the watershed’s 200 households.

“My wife is also a member of the savings and credit co-operative set up by Concern. She got three ewes and one ram as a credit,” said Seid Asan Abegas (38), who owns a 0.75 hectare plot of land in Atinit Mesberia. He now has 30 sheep, and has constructed two huts from the sale of his livestock – one for his animals, the other for storing hay and seeds – as well as a corrugated iron-roofed house. “Before, I was a dependent on my family,” he said. “I had no assets. I am now independent.”

12 years ago

How to write about African food

This post is inspired by Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina’s acclaimed “How to Write about Africa“ essay, published in the Winter 2005 edition of Granta. As a food blogger who reads and writes about African cuisine, the amount of nonsensical articles I’ve come across on the topic have left me exasperated, annoyed, amused, bemused – and with enough material for this piece.

If your editor assigns you to review a restaurant serving African food, the following instructions will prove helpful*:

It is best practice to include the word “Africa” plus a positive descriptor in your headline. If you must be more specific, whole regions like West Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa, West Africa or Central Africa will do. Always keep the headline of your article broad, even when writing about the food of a specific country. Examples: “Tasty South African Food Now in Eastham” or “Africa’s Exotic Delights“.

Exceptions for use of specifics are allowed only when talking about Moroccan or Ethiopian food. Note that it is also okay to mix interchange Ethiopian and Eritrean food.

Insert yourself into the story: you are a writer for a local publication and you have decided to write about a Ghanaian restaurant. You did not make it to the restaurant opening three years ago, but emphasise that you have spent those three years fantasising about trying out the food there.

Mention that the first time you tried Cameroonian food was many years ago. Doing so indicates your expertise and allows for some form of comparative analysis. Other reasons for your expertise include having a Cameroonian roommate in college and enjoying a homemade feast during his graduation celebration.

Comment on the growth of the Somali community in your area in recent years. Give some statistics and bring up the most famous local Somali. A quote from him/her is good, but not necessary. Have said local discuss the population growth of “his people” in your area.

Refute any stereotypes the reader may have about African food. Some of the stereotypes to disclaim: African food is oily; it is difficult to eat; it is not popular; it is hard on the taste buds; African food is bland; it is hard to find; Africans are starving so their food does not offer room for complexity, etc.

Remind the reader that Africa is not a country, but still do not offer specifics.

Quote the African and African American studies professor at your local university.

Mention Marcus Samuelsson.

Marcus Samuelsson is an Ethiopian-born chef, owner of Red Rooster Harlem in New York City and three other restaurants, and author of two cookbooks and a memoir. (Pic: AFP)

Describe the restaurant. Make full use of your senses and description skills. Note the traditional furnishings (wood carvings, basket stools) and the merriment of the clientele. Take a photo.

Remark that from the sights and the smell of the delicious food to the foreign language being spoken over rhythmic music in the background, you could very well be in Dar-es-Salaam. You have never been to Dar-es-Salaam, but you are sure this is what it would be like. After first reference, call it “Dar” – like the locals do.

Interview some customers, preferably a local taxi driver. He eats his lunch here every day. He is from Rwanda. He is drinking Tusker. Quote him once.

Highlight the four to five white people in the restaurant and emphasise the diversity of the place. Include that this is a place suitable for the adventurous. Quote the few patrons profusely.

Mention Marcus Samuelsson again.

Introduce the owner of the restaurant. If male, he moved to the country 10 years ago and learned to cook by working in the restaurant of a hotel. Another option is that he had no idea how to cook upon arrival and taught himself everything he knew after a bout of severe homesickness. His name is Chuck.

If female, she is a motherly figure who walks round greeting customers as if they were family. Think Mother Africa. She has a twinkle in her eye. She is plump. Everyone calls her Mama O.

Ask Chuck or Mama O why they chose to open a restaurant. Ask about the name of the restaurant and what it means.

Discuss the menu and gloss over the regular dishes (remember, you ate this at your friend’s graduation). Focus on the most exotic-sounding foods.

Point out that Mama O brought out a knife and fork for you, but you endeavored to go ahead and eat with your hands. Mention that you cleared your plate. Don’t offer criticism.

Conclude with your general sentiments of enjoyment. Do it in a way that subliminally tells your readers, especially the adventurous, that it is okay to come eat here. And note that it was only when you walked out the door that you were reminded that you were back in Seattle.

Visuals are always a plus. Along with the photos of the restaurant’s interior, take photos of the food you ate. There will be little if any food styling to ensure the reader views the food in its authentic state.

*These instructions will prove helpful even outside of writing restaurant reviews. Use them in whatever context African food is mentioned. This may also be especially useful for the foreign volunteer blogging about his/her food experiences in an African country, as this is a very popular sub-culture of African food writing.

Adhis is a journalist who blogs at Chef Afrik where she is currently cooking her way through Africa one country at a time. She writes about food, travel and culture on the continent. Connect with her on Twitter.

12 years ago

Nigeria’s cabbies face arrest for dressing ‘indecently’

Cutoff pants displaying a bulging calf? Sleeveless T-shirts showing off a well-muscled physique? Forget it in Nigeria’s northern Kano state, where Islamic police are deploying thousands of officers to arrest anyone sporting the “indecent dress” that’s fashionable among young men driving motorised rickshaw taxis.

Police also have orders to arrest any cabbie carrying men and women together in the confined space of the three-wheeled taxis.

“The way and manner some of the commercial tricycle operators engage in indecent dressing and carry men and women together is disturbing,” said Yusuf Yola, spokesperson for the Hisbah board that is responsible for ensuring compliance with Shariah laws in Kano.

He said such dress, with pants cut off just below the knee like Bermuda shorts, also was “un-Hausa,” referring to the biggest tribe in Nigeria’s north.

A cabbie driver dressed in sleeveless T-shirt and cutoff pants – clothing considered ‘indecent’ by Nigeria’s Islamic cops. (Pic: AP)

Usually it’s women who are the target of the Islamic police checking that they have properly covered their heads and limbs.

Yola told The Associated Press on Monday that 10 000 officers will be deployed to ensure the laws are enforced, including “a law in the state which prohibits gender mix in commercial vehicles.”

He said officers have orders to stop and search to make sure everyone obeys – including Christians.

Nine of Nigeria’s 37 states have introduced Shariah law since 2000 as some Muslims have become more fundamentalist. But the law is interpreted differently and enforced more rigidly in some states. Three other states introduced Shariah law, but only for Muslims who want to use it as an alternative to Western-style family law.

The rest of Nigeria is under secular law. Africa’s most populous nation of more than 160-million people is almost equally divided between Muslims and Christians.

In Kano on Monday, taxi driver Jamilu mai Babur, a Muslim, was rebellious: “I will not comply with this useless order because Shariah is not about violating human rights.”

Jamilu Hisba, another Muslim driver, agreed but said he would have to obey. “It’s against Islam, this forceful order, but they have power over us so I must comply because this is my means of survival.”

Ibrahim Garba for Sapa-AP

12 years ago

African men don’t do feminists

Ask an African man what he thinks about feminists. Go ahead, and record their answers so you can email it to me later. I like a good laugh to start my mornings. If he is like 90% of the African men I know, his answer will be around the lines of, “You mean those white women who don’t like to cook?” or, “Those single women who can’t have babies?” or my personal favourite, “You mean LESBIANS?”.

Feminism, as many of us daughters of Africa know, is taboo on the continent. I would define feminism as a woman who takes gender seriously and addresses discrepancies between the sexes throughout her everyday life. She is a woman who will not conform or adjust her beliefs for the sake of a man’s (or society’s) comfort. Still, throughout Africa our brothers and sisters tie feminism to western voodoo, a type of evil cult that tells African women it is okay to be unmarried, focused on your career and not on procreation, or that the institution of patriarchy in Africa may actually be – shocker – detrimental.

So imagine the struggle of being a self-proclaimed feminist, raised and educated in the US, now living back on the continent, trying to date African men. The struggle has been real. It seems as though African men on the continent, even those who’ve returned from university or work abroad, have an image of their perfect woman, and she is definitely not a feminist. I’d say she’s more of a maid. Let me explain. First, every African man wants a cook, like his mama. Meaning girls, be ready to chip that manicure-peeling cassava and you better pick up his plate when dinner is done. And how can you expect a grown man to dish his own rice? Don’t be foolish now! Next, he wants a personal assistant. A woman that will check on his family, make sure his mom has all her prescriptions, remember his little sister’s birthday and ensure that his favourite suits are ready for that business trip the next week. You know, the usual tasks we women went to university for. Finally, he wants a nurturer, a woman ready to become a mother as soon as possible. African men want kids, usually lots of them. They want a woman who will take pride in bearing multiple children, along with the breastfeeding, potty training, washing, burping and, in general, 24-hour babysitting.

Now, are the aforementioned tasks and attributes a sure sign of being anti-feminist? Not always, but sometimes I feel that when dating African men there is not too much room for compromise on the woman’s side. It’s all or nothing with African men. To say that you hate cooking, will be no one’s assistant for under $70 000 a year, or that you are not interested in being someone’s mother is romantic suicide on this continent. Many African men love “strong” women, but to be overly vocal about how sexism is negatively affecting women, for example, can turn you into a bra-burning radical that rejects traditional notions of marriage and doesn’t shave her legs. And what African man is supposed to take this kind of woman home to meet his African mother? Again, don’t be foolish!

Even me, an opinionated over-analyser who quotes Pumla Gqola on my Tumblr blog, would get nervous during a first date with a tall, dark and handsome African man who my mother would call “ozzband” [husband] material”. As the two of us would sit there getting to know each other, he’d hit me with the boom early on and say something like, “I mean the first thing I look for in a woman is her cooking skills, I like traditional women you know?”. I would cringe, smile and respond, “Yeah, cooking is important, having a traditional marriage is not the worst thing in the world.” But the whole time I’d be thinking, “What the hell Stephanie, there’s nothing traditional about you besides the fact that you like to eat foufou and sauce with your hands.” But because African men don’t do feminists, I always felt the need to dumb my ideals down a bit as to not scare these brothas away.

African men have set and continue to set the dating tone on this continent, and since many still want that cook/assistant/nurturer/superwoman, it has left us self-proclaimed feminists in a box, a very lonely box where we watch as friends get married and we end up being that guest sitting in the back discussing bell hooks’ Feminist Theory with no one in particular.

So I ask the African men out there: Is it true? If a woman walked up to you wearing a T-shirt with the words “African Feminist” on it, would you be intrigued or intimidated? Curious or concerned? Do you not do feminists? Or am I over-generalising?

Stephanie A. Kimou was born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire and raised in Washington, DC. She is a blogger by night at A Black Girl in the World and a programme manager at a women’s social enterprise in Tanzania by day. She holds a masters degree in international affairs from Georgetown University in DC, and has studied at the African Gender Institute in Cape Town and the University of Paris in France. Her mother has told her she has two years to get married, or else. Writing is the way she deals with this stress.

12 years ago

Africa Express: In solidarity with Mali’s musicians

It may be just about the hottest new pop-up club in the world, but you have to look hard for the glamour. There is no red carpet and the bar has run out of beer. The decor leaves a lot to be desired: a brightly painted wall, some plastic chairs and dozens of palm trees.

Welcome to Bamako, the capital of Mali, not the most obvious choice for a star-studded club launch. Mali endured a wretched year in 2012, the northern half seized by a motley alliance of Islamists and Tuareg rebels, the president ousted in a coup and the country almost breaking in half before a French-backed government offensive turned the situation around. Northern Mali still dangles precariously between war and peace and Islamist rebels still make life uncomfortable for towns that until recently they occupied.

But inside the Maison des Jeunes – a community space cum youth hostel near the banks of the River Niger – artists including Damon Albarn, Brian Eno, Idris Elba, and some of Europe and America’s brightest young producers – bop their heads in unison to the live performances taking place in a kind of defiance.

“I keep coming back to Mali, through everything that’s happened,” said Albarn. “At times it has felt odd in Bamako, with the problems in the north, but I’m just trying to personally establish dialogue with the people in this country and the music.”

Damon Albarn of Blur performs at the 2013 Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indo, California. (Pic: AFP)

“The reason we are in Mali now is because of what’s happened here in the last year,” said Ian Birrell, co-founder with Albarn of the Africa Express project.

“Malian artists are so brilliant. We wanted to come back as a form of solidarity and do the tiny bit we can do to promote the music that we love and revere.”

Albarn’s involvement with Malian music dates back to 2000, when a trip to the west African country with Oxfam led to an infatuation with its sounds that would see him record an album with Malian musicians Afel Bocoum and Toumani Diabate. In 2006 Albarn launched Africa Express – a joyfully chaotic series of collaborations between western and African artists, which last year led to 70 musicians taking over a chartered train.

Spoek Mathambo, Jack Steadman and Peter Hook play ‘Control’ at Africa Express, The Ritz, Manchester in 2012. (Pic: Simon Phipps / Africa Express)

On the second floor of a building adjacent to the courtyard, in an airy studio that has seen better days – with mint-green plaster walls and tatty floor tiling – ambient music maestro Brian Eno sits immersed, working on his laptop.

Behind him Holy Other – the enigmatic, highly-rated R&B artist whose full identity remains a secret and who is only ever seen in public wearing a black shroud – is similarly occupied, and Wire star, DJ and producer Idris Elba breezes in and out. “I’m just listening. I don’t know what to do other than sit there with my mouth wide open,” said Eno of the music being recorded by Malian artists. “I don’t feel inclined to sample and play over the top – for me it’s too complete.”

There is a deliberate spontaneity in the way Albarn likes to work with African artists; the word “chaos” is frequently used by everyone involved in Africa Express, usually spoken with a sense of pride at being involved in such an intense, cross-cultural musical frenzy.

The launch of live performances at the Maison des Jeunes coincides with the first attempt to produce an Africa Express album, as producers including Eno, Ghostpoet, Pauli the PSM from Gorillaz and Nick Zinner from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs work out which Malian artists to collaborate with, and set about recording and producing them in new ways.

“I have never done anything like this before,” said Kankou Konyate ( 21), lead singer of Gambari, whose vocals soar out over local n’goni lute rhythms. “Since the war things have been difficult, and complicated. But this is very good.”

Albarn, who has been critical of western celebrities patronising Africa in the past, says Africa Express is all about creating a level playing field and building connections, artist to artist.

But the group are also under no illusions about the state of Mali. Eno, on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa since he visited Ghana in 1980, says he is shocked by how little progress has been made.

“I was quite surprised coming here how broken the place is,” said Eno. “How the streets are terrible. The open sewers stink. It’s very disheartening in a way. But what is really strong here is social infrastructure – it’s so powerful and rich.”

Afua Hirsch for the Guardian