Page 9 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 14

Re-Education

Afrika have experienced while try- we get planting and may 2010 we get the The third season never happened as
ing to rise up. first harvest. stakeholders pulled out. Brokers reigned,
Together with Kitui Ginnery we negotiate priced dropped back to Ksh 12/-, today
He wrote: with the government to have a cooperative there are less than 20 farmers doing cotton
society for the farmers as we prepare for in the district.
“In 2008 my friend and I decide to start the second round of the programme - the
a revolution. How do we do it? Get out idea is to get the farmers have their own That’s where we are as a country when it
there, start cotton farming with a target of ginnery and spinning equipment for the comes to production and industrialization.
200 tones each. My friend left for Lamu youth to work on cotton material man- We are enemies to ourselves. Until we
and I took the Tharaka Nithi route. ufacture. Some guy in Kirinyaga was have strict government regulations and
My idea was to rope in farmers by selling making the spinners that could be run by remove the liberalization in the agricul-
the “ Farming as a Business” concept to youth groups. tural sector, it will be difficult to get back
maximize space and output. Season one is done and we have managed to proper cotton and cloth production in
to product 360 tones of cotton. Hur- Kenya.
So I put together stakeholders (Equity raaaay! Look at Ethiopia, they have very strict
Bank, Bayer EA, Kitui Ginneries, rules, full government involvement in their
Ministry of AGRICULTURE, the Now the BAD! As we were preparing for agricultural sector which brews order.
hen Kenya Agricultural Research Institute the second season, the government finalized Had CoDA given us the space to stay in
(KARI) and my seven lead farmers.) the formation of Cotton Development our cocoon, today we would be speaking
The idea was to ensure that we provide Authority who now takes over the cotton a different language in Maara and the
the clean SEED, HUSBANDRY & programmes from the ministry of Agri- country at large.
MARKET which were the ingredients culture. Regional managers are appointed That’s WHAT’S UP!”
missing to spur the production. and with gusto they run to their regions to
‘grow’ cotton. Slave mindset, Capitalism,
Fast forward, in 2009, using my multi- Crabs-in-the-bucket syndrome,
level marketing skills, I manage to use One afternoon I receive a call from fruits of the same evil tree
a ‘tree’ of Seven to raise the number of someone who introduces themselves as Did you notice that I placed (THE
farmers. So first we hold a meeting with the CoDA Regional Manager for Mt GUY WAS PART OF MY TEAM
the farmers and start a campaign to first Kenya. By this time, the crop is flowering AND HAD HELPED ME BUILD
buy all the cotton that was in the stores and the spray programmes we ongoing. THE STAKEHOLDERS TEAM)
across the District in total we bought 65 He tells me that he had been given my in caps? I did it intentionally to
tones of cotton in one week at Ksh 28/- number by the ministry coordinator in draw your attention to the very core
which was the government recommended charge of cotton development (THE of this article. But let me go on for
price. The brokers had been buying at GUY WAS PART OF MY TEAM the moment.
Ksh 12/- the reason farmers stocked their AND HAD HELPED ME BUILD
cotton. THE STAKEHOLDERS TEAM). The slave mindset in a person can
With each farmer recruiting 7 others and (emphasis mine) only be understood for what it is
the new seven each recruiting 7 others, Then followed the bomb, “am told that when one has taken the time to un-
we had 4,136 farmers ready to get into you have monopolized the cotton buying derstand why on God’s earth some-
the program. Each was supposed to do a in Maara District, and I am here to tell one, in this case, a white man would
maximum of 1 acre for the programme. you that cotton shall be bought by anybody so hate and undermine an Afrikan
This piece was to have two crops - cotton anywhere”! that they would see him as worth-
(a two season cash crop) and a choice of less and only worthy of being taken
one other one season subsistence crop. That was the end of the programme as as slave. If you can imagine the
KARI and Kitui Ginnery supplied seed, brokers jumped in for cotton buying. hate, the false sense of superiority,
Kitui Ginnery provided the market, Bayer By the time of closing the season, Kitui the hidden fear, the ungodliness and
EA provided the scouting and the spray Ginnery only managed to access 200 the mental virus that could make a
programmes, while Equity Bank provided tones out of the target of 430 tones. This person take another person as slave,
financing. Of course the Agriculture means that Bayer EA could not recover and destroy his civilization, in order
Ministry provided us with the regulatory their invoices as the farmers chose to sell to create a twisted history that says
support by blocking the zone for one buyer where the inputs from Bayer EA couldn’t Afrikans were never civilized before
- Kitui Ginnery. be recovered so that they can get their full the coming of the white man, then
We are in business and in October 2009 returns without loan repayment. you will understand what happens

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