The Taita occupy the three sub-counties of Mwatate, Voi and Wundanyi in Taita Taveta County. They are thought to have migrated northwards through present day Tanzania to settle around Taita Hills, the northernmost part of the Eastern Arc Mountains. Taveta, the other sub-county within Taita Taveta County, is occupied by the Taveta-speaking people, and borders Tanzania to the South. Taita Taveta is a melting pot of ethnicities although the Taita and the Taveta are the majority. The county covers an area of approximately 17,100 square kilometres, with 62 per cent of the land taken up by the Tsavo East and Tsavo West National Parks. The rest of the land is occupied by ranches, private estates, and human settlements. Landlessness is acute in the county owing to poverty, displacement, evictions and the limited amount of land available for human activity.
The varied topography of Taita Taveta County—the upper zones which include the Sagalla, Mwambirwa and Taita Hills, the lowlands or plains of Voi and Mwatate and the volcanic foothills of Taveta—affect climatic conditions, water availability, and the viability of the land for agricultural purposes. Due its topography, most of the underground water in the county is to be found in the springs in Taveta and around Lakes Chala and Jipe. Higher rainfall is experienced in the highland areas where the forest cover provides a good catchment area. The plains are mostly semi-arid, experiencing very low rainfall. Three rivers—Lumi, Voi and Tsavo—traverse the county and the largest spring, Mzima Springs, is in Voi sub-county. The temperatures average 17°C in the high altitude areas and 30°C in the lowlands. Rainfall is in two cycles annually: the long rains between March and May and the short rains between October and December.
Like other Kenyans, the Taita eat ugali—the Swahili name for a stiff porridge made with maize meal that they call mswara—with an accompaniment of green leafy vegetables such as sukuma wiki (collard greens) spinach, cabbage, mnavu ghwa soko (cowpea leaves), mwapa (cassava leaves), pumpkin leaves, or foraged wild varieties such as mnyunya (wild lettuce), mgagani (Cleome gynandra), mwapa (cassava leaves), mchicha (amaranth leaves), ndunda (black nightshade), etc. Ugali flour is made from dried maize traditionally pounded with a mortar and pestle, then further ground either by hand or machine. Pounded maize is also used to make another Taita favourite called pure (a mix of pounded maize and beans). The maize chaff is traditionally used for making mbangara, the local beer. The Taita used to eat game meat when hunting was legal, or farmed livestock such as cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, pigs, etc. The meat was either dried on rocks (mdanda) or smoked over a wood-burning stove. Nowadays, most eat their meat fresh.
Habitual approaches to consuming food in Taita are no different from those of other communities around the country. For the Taita, breakfast and the evening meal are centred around family, but lunch is consumed individually wherever the family members are, which could be at work, home, or school. The packed lunch will most likely be the remains of the previous evening’s meal. However, those who can afford it eat this meal in restaurants and cafés.
Gender, feasts and memories
There is a gendered dynamic in Taita homes as food preparation falls to the womenfolk, and the knowledge is passed down the generations from grandmother to mother to daughter. However, many Taita men also know how to cook and in fact, my sister and I learnt how to cook mswara from our dad. Women’s labour is not limited to food preparation; women are involved in the entire food production chain, from cultivation, harvesting, processing, storage, transportation, buying and selling, and finally, preparation.
Food is central to celebrations in Taita. The community comes together to prepare food for communal functions such as funerals, weddings, and other festivities. Women do most of this communal labour although of late those with means pay for outside catering. Meals to celebrate religious holidays such as Easter, Christmas or Eid are made within the family, with sharing in mind. In our Christian household for instance, whenever an animal is slaughtered for such celebrations, it is done by a Muslim in a halal manner, enabling us to share and celebrate with our Muslim kin and friends.
No celebratory Taita meal is complete without pilau, chapati, kuku fry, maharagwe ya nazi, mbuzi fry, choma, kimanga and mbangara. Oh, and tea, litres and litres of tea. As is the case with many other ethnic groups in Kenya, the Taita food culture has been influenced by the culinary traditions of other Kenyan communities, introducing a demand for new foods that were previously not part of the traditional diet.
Food, land and devolution
Rain-fed subsistence agriculture is the main economic activity in Taita Taveta County, with farmers growing maize, beans, sorghum, cowpeas, pigeon peas, green grams and vegetables for their own consumption and selling the surplus. Livestock farming is either on communal or government ranches, or by small-scale farmers rearing animals in their homesteads or bomas in the plains (kireti). Agricultural labour is provided by the farmers’ families and hired full-time or part-time labourers.
The 2013 devolution of agricultural functions to the county level prompted the County Government of Taita Taveta to work together with farmers, the County Assembly of Taita Taveta, traders, Agro-NGOs and consumers to ensure the county’s food security. According to the county’s budget estimates for 2019-2020, approximately KSh800 million was earmarked for the agricultural, water, and ecology sectors, as well as agribusiness development. Some of the allocated funds came from development partners such as the World Bank, the European Union, and Sweden. This money was intended to improve the agricultural food supply chain starting with production, i.e. development of water infrastructure for irrigation, access to seeds, agricultural extension services, etc., to enable farmers produce the food. To ensure that this produce gets to markets, investments in infrastructure like feeder roads and actual markets were planned for. Investments in the areas of agri-business were meant to supplement farmers or individuals in establishing value addition businesses. As Taita’s main economic activity is subsistence agriculture, the county government hoped that this investment would improve farmers livelihoods thereby increasing their purchasing power.
As is the case with many other ethnic groups in Kenya, the Taita food culture has been influenced by the culinary traditions of other Kenyan communities.
However, a look at the 2020 County Budget Review and Outlook Paper, which reviews the county government’s actual fiscal performance for 2019-2020, shows that out of a budget of KSh4.73 billion, KSh3.96 billion or 84 per cent of the budget, was used for recurrent expenditure, leaving about KSh77 million for all county projects, a far cry from the budgeted KSh800 million for the agricultural and water sectors alone.
Besides the low levels of expenditure for agricultural projects, a myriad of other factors including low rainfall, reduced crop yields, lack of water for irrigation, environmental and climatic factors, land scarcity, and poverty affect food production and accessibility, rendering Taita Taveta food insecure. This food insecurity is felt the most in the drier Taita region and for decades now Taveta has been Taita’s key food supplier. Taveta is able to supply the Taita region for two reasons: its topography and its location.
Sitting on the volcanic foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro, Taveta has fertile soils and, more importantly, it has both aboveground and underground water that can be used for irrigation. With water from Lake Chala and from Njoro Springs, Taveta has been able to irrigate up to 53 per cent of its potentially irrigable acreage, compared to Taita where only 14 per cent of land is under irrigation. In addition, Taveta has more smallholder irrigation schemes per square kilometre—4 per cent, compared to Taita’s 0.55 per cent.
The second reason why Taveta is important as a source of food supply for the Taita region is its location. Taveta borders Tanzania to the South and has a thriving border economy with the country that has been enhanced following the opening of the Taveta-Holili one-stop border post. In addition, the new Taveta market has increased Taveta’s access to agricultural produce—such as maize, beans, vegetables, fruits and rice—from the Northern Kilimanjaro region. To the west, Taveta also has access to food markets in the Kenyan interior via the Loitokitok Sub-County of Kajiado County.
This food insecurity is felt the most in the drier Taita region and for decades now Taveta has been Taita’s key food supplier.
The county government of Taita Taveta is trying to promote a move towards commercialisation of farming as evidenced by the mandates of both its departments of Agriculture, Livestock, Irrigation & Fisheries and Water, Environment & Sanitation. These departments have drawn up strategies that include increasing the acreage under irrigation, developing irrigation infrastructure, mechanising farming, encouraging the formation of cooperatives in the agricultural sector, supporting value addition agri-businesses, etc., to improve farming output and the agricultural supply chain. The government is also supported by development partners in this commercialization push, either through direct funding or expertise. Livestock farming, fish farming, macadamia farming, bee keeping, rice farming, and groundnut farming, are some of the areas being encouraged and supported.
There are a few major private agro-estates and ranches, such as Lualenyi Ranch and Teita Estate, and a few county government ranches that produce milk and beef for sale outside the county.
Farms, food markets and seed culture
Apart from the climate challenges, land scarcity, deforestation and low rainfall that are creating food insecurity, the cost of farm inputs is another challenge for Taita farmers.
Traditional seed preservation and sharing methods were cheaper for the farmers as they could swap or sell seeds to each other. Where formerly farming families kept back seed for planting in the next season, this is now impossible given the seed laws that have criminalized sharing, exchanging or selling uncertified and unregistered seeds, creating dependency on seed companies. Having said that, one must acknowledge that due to the lack of water for irrigation and low rainfall, the farmers need to move to other farming technologies that would improve their crop. To resolve this issue, there is ongoing research within the county, undertaken by NGOs and research institutions, to develop drought-resistant seed varieties that can do well under Taita Taveta’s climatic conditions. However, this still does not address the concerns regarding the draconian seed laws which ignore the fact that, according to Greenpeace, up to 90 per cent of seeds planted in Kenya come from informal seed systems on which 80 per cent of smallholder farms rely.
Value addition is another key area that is lacking along the food production chain in Taita Taveta where most of the produce is sold or consumed in its most basic form. The county government is intent on developing capacity for value addition businesses in order to safeguard agricultural produce, create employment opportunities, and avail markets to the farmers. Calls for stalled projects to be completed, such as the Taveta Banana Processing Plant, are frequently heard.
Food production in Taita is also affected by human-wildlife conflict, with cases of marauding elephants from the neighbouring national parks rampaging through farms and destroying crops, baboons harvesting farmers’ crops or big cats making away with livestock being frequently reported. A 2020 study found that most farms in the Taita Hills were raided on a weekly basis by monkeys and, to a lesser extent baboons, and that this posed a serious threat to food security in the area. Local NGOs have embarked on a project to create a forested wildlife corridor along the Voi river, linking the Taita Hills with Tsavo East National Park to keep the primates away from the farms (although the study’s findings that farms close to the forests are raided more frequently may cast some doubt on the utility of this approach if farmers keep encroaching on wildlife areas).
According to Greenpeace, up to 90 per cent of seeds planted in Kenya come from informal seed systems on which 80 per cent of smallholder farms rely.
In addition, frequent clashes between pastoralists and farmers due to land scarcity are another area of concern. According to a 2013 study, Taita Taveta has since pre-colonial times experienced societal disruptions caused by cattle rustling, and persistent droughts that have weakened pre-existing regional networks of interaction, exchange, and crisis management. The establishment of the Tsavo National Park, which alienated traditional land, and land grabs by local elites related to commercial farming and mining opportunities, have further intensified these conflicts, leading to disruption, displacement and loss of life, with the attendant impacts on access to food.
All is not gloom and doom, however. Together with the newly operationalised modern markets in Mwatate and Taveta, the County Government of Taita Taveta has also opened many markets throughout the county, improving access to food, and creating avenues for the people and the county to earn revenues while also bringing improvements to other sectors such as the transport sector. These and other initiatives that the agriculture stakeholders in Taita Taveta are taking should surely turn around the food security situation in the county.
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This article is part of The Elephant Food Edition Series done in collaboration with Route to Food Initiative (RTFI). Views expressed in the article are not necessarily those of the RTFI.
