How a social entrepreneur is fighting food insecurity in Bungoma

”The war against hunger and malnutrition cannot be won without collective effort to strengthen the very foundation that feeds the world-rural farming communities.” ~Eunice Barasa

Growing up in the rural areas of Tongaren, Bungoma county, Eunice Barasa became awake to the realities around food insecurity bedeviling communities. This shaped her pursuits in fighting food insecurity through innovation. She is the holder of masters in Sociology and Gender Development from Women’s University of Africa in Harare, Zimbabwe and founder of Lyma Farms and Foods.

“Growing up, I was surrounded by massive rural poverty, a characteristic condition that defines rural Africa. Of course, where poverty resides there, you find hunger, sickness and ignorance. It’s a social problem with disproportionate impact on women and a huge impediment to social and economic advancement at personal, family and societal levels. This lived experience fueled my transition from corporate service to step aside in order to confront the situation the best way possible. My passion for rural households is because I am a product of that environment,” Eunice narrates.

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With the country facing severe hunger caused by drought and other factors, Eunice resolved to find a way to combat it in her own small way. Seeing surplus vegetables going waste owing to lack of preservation methods, she opted to design solar dryers which helps her and other farmers to dry indigenous vegetables for the purpose of using them in dry seasons. She realized that there were no ways that farmers can use to preserve their produce. Lyma Farms and Foods, designs solar dryers and packages dried vegetables. She sells the solar driers to farmers country-wide to help them preserve their produce.

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“Post-harvest loss is a perennial problem to most farmers yet available solutions are beyond their reach. In an effort to decentralize these solutions, one of which is food preservation, I developed a package that meets the three-point gap, that is knowledge, skills and technology. This gave birth to our domestic solar dependent dryer ideal for small holder farmers,” she narrates.

She continued, “The kind of dryers we make are a miniature version of what we already have in the wider market. The concept was to simply to redesign one that would make economic sense to a rural household. This is influenced by the fact that the very people who are working suffer the most from hunger and nutrient deficiency. They must in this case be supported to produce healthy food, preserve some for their families before they take the rest to the markets,” she observes.

Tackling hidden hunger

While fighting food insecurity in Kenya, the government, policy makers and other stakeholders view food insecurity in terms of unavailability of cereals which ring-fences mainly maize, wheat and rice which are generally carbohydrates. Hidden hunger is a form of undernutrition that occurs when intake and absorption of vitamins and minerals are too low to sustain good health and development. Access to sufficient and nutritious vegetables in Kenya has not surfaced as key area of concern in food security debates, which in turn has masked hidden hunger despite its detrimental effect on people. Eunice says hidden hunger has to be rectified failure to which it causes several health problems which includes but not limited to stunted growth, weak immunity and poor cognitive function.

“The ignorance surrounding hidden hunger is excusable because champions of food security have placed more emphasis on high calorie food – maize, wheat, rice and recently millets – as chief determinants of food security. I challenge this entrenched mindset and call on policy makers to give room to the role vegetables play in human health. If hidden hunger is not rectified, it results to stunted growth in children, weak immunity, impaired physical growth, poor cognitive function, and degenerative and chronic diseases in old age. In other words, if one escapes death, it devastates one’s entire lifespan. Even mild to moderate deficiencies can affect a person’s well-being and development,” she says.

“In addition to affecting human health, hidden hunger can curtail socioeconomic development, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. 1 in 2 children under the age of five and 2 in 3 women aged 15-49 (reproductive age) are affected by micronutrient deficiencies globally. These figures are representative of just one-third of the global population, thus the condition is dire if all demographics are subjected to test,” she adds.

According to Eunice, drying of vegetables helps in fighting food insecurity as it enables sufficient supply of vegetables throughout the year regardless of weather conditions.

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“Dehydration increases the shelf life of vegetables allowing producers and consumers making the wise decision of stocking enough to manage eventualities. Equally, it ensures that availability is guaranteed in between seasons due to unreliable rainfall patterns. Similarly, farmers make the most of their input and earn better from their produce. They are tempted to sell at a throw away price for fear of ending up with a rotting produce in house. With dehydration, they earn extra coins to supplement other household items and needs. Besides, the practice curbs food loss and waste meaning effective utilization of resources and inputs, to be used in the production of other food crops,” she says.