Kenyan traditional foods fast disappearing from menus

The Kenyan community is currently whirling in a serious traditional food deficit that has seen very little such food finding its way onto people’s tables.

The reason being, the country’s citizens have diverted to embracing the western-pushed foods to the point of despising the once-loved and popular foods among the age groups of the elderly persons (the boomers) of the 20s, 60s, and up to the 80s.

Such foods include those made out of millet, sorghum, cassava, and a host of traditional vegetables, most of which are completely not served in many dining halls frequented by the young people (the Millennials, the Gen Zs, and the Alphas).

It is not a surprise to learn that some of the young people—the Alphas—cannot differentiate between millet and sorghum and would outright dismiss ‘Ugali’ made out of these as ‘mud’.

However, according to health experts, the traditional food remains very significant in allowing any human being to live a healthy life. They come with part of the essential vitamins that human beings require to enjoy a recommended diet.

The community dilemma in regaining its lost efforts to produce sufficient baskets of traditional foods is the lack of impetus by the agricultural experts to mobilize the masses through education to revert back to producing millet, sorghum, cassava, and traditional vegetables in large quantities.

Migori County Nutritional Officer Caroline Odette encourages people to delve more into eating a variety of traditional foods like Ugali cooked with millet or sorghum or cassava flour or a mix of all these as a way to live a healthy diet.

Odette says millets are found to be helpful with the reduction of weight, BMI, and high blood pressure. Additionally, millets are lower in calories compared to rice, making them an excellent choice for reducing calorie intake and achieving weight loss goals.

Versatile and diverse, millet grains are used in dishes around the world, including flatbreads, porridge, drinks, pilafs, bread, and more. Millet is also used to brew alcoholic beverages, such as millet beer.

In this regard, therefore, credit can be given to certain farmers in Migori who are going against all odds to produce cassava, millet, and sorghum in large quantities.

Thanks to Mr. Jacob Tol, who has remained a pillar in cassava production for many years, even with the drastically reduced appetite for cassava foods in the Migori region and Kenya as a whole.

When Mr. Tol opted to try his luck in cassava growing three years ago, many of his friends dismissed him as a joker. He was pestered to stick to maize and sugarcane growing, an activity that he had engaged in for close to two decades.

But he had already made up his mind to switch to cassava farming, and no amount of pressure from any quarter could make him drop his thirst for the crop, especially after going through a bad experience with the sale of maize and sugarcane.

Today, the 62-year-old farmer-cum-retired education officer is a proud owner of a 14-acre farm of cassava at Buembu village in Suna West Sub County of Migori County.

Tol, who bid goodbye to a civil service job two years ago, looks forward to going full hog into cassava growing, which he says has a bright future for his retirement period.

“I am planning to grow cassava in a large scale during my remaining years in this universe owing to the promising market for this crop in the country,” he told this reporter when he took us through his expansive cassava farm recently.

Because of the favorable soils and the correct rainfalls received in the area, cassava, which is a drought-resistant crop, has been doing very well for the few farmers who have embraced it amid many odds.

“Many of the local people have despised growing the crop, apparently because its meal of ‘Ugali’ is not loved, especially by the young people, compared to the white ugali made from maize flour,” says the farmer.

And the biggest problem that has been identified to be hindering the production of this crop is the culture of the local people, who view it as a crop grown by the oldest generations of the ethnic tribes that grew it.

“The current generation feels the crop has no place among the highly loved food crops of modern times, thus its low uptake among many tribes in Kenya,” explained Mr. Tol.

Credit also goes to Mr. Joseph Magaiwa, a member of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), who decided to venture into serious sorghum farming after taking leave from active politics.

Now a popular farmer from Mabera Sub-County in the Kuria West region, Magaiwa decided to venture into serious sorghum production due to the crop’s high demand and the favorable climate that supports its growth within the region.

The farmer notes that he is aware of the importance of the crop in regards to the nutrition that many homes in Kenya lack on their table at the moment. ‘I was attracted to the crop partly by the good stories about it from our old people who narrated how eating sorghum food is healthy to a human body,” he told a KNA crew during a tour of his expansive sorghum farm recently.

He also narrated how exploitation from middlemen and poor prices of maize, sweet potatoes, and sugarcane crops drove him to cultivate sorghum in large quantities as demands continued to rise two years ago.

“I am calling on the government to make serious efforts in promoting the growth of traditional crops like sorghum that are drought-resistant crops, unlike maize and other modern crops that suffer from a variety of diseases and climate change,” paused Magaiwa.

According to Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Research (KALRO), it is estimated that Kenya produces less than 100,000 metric tonnes of sorghum, millet, and cassava every year with a growth of 0.01 percent yearly.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) also places Kenya at a very low position in the list of countries worldwide in terms of sorghum, millet, and cassava production.

By George Agimba