44 Middle East and Africa The EconomistApril 14th 2018
African farmingEscaping the maize
“I
T’S what our forefathers used to eat,”
says Kennedy Kapami, a Zambian
phone salesman, rolling a ball of stiff
maize porridge in his fingers. Maize is the
staple food in eastern and southern
Africa, where in some countries it pro-
vides over half of calories consumed. But
Mr Kapami is wrong about his forefa-
thers, or at least, his distant ones. Until
the 20th century they mostly ate sor-
ghum and millet. Maize came to Africa
with the colonists. Governments now
fret about its dominance.
Portuguese slavers were the first to
bring it to Africa. Sometimes the crop
took roundabout routes. Swahili-speak-
ers know it asmahindi(of India). Bamba-
ra-speakers in Mali call itkaba, after the
sacred site in Mecca, from where pilgrims
returned with exotic foods.
In southern Africa maize was grown
on large estates by white settlers. Afterindependence, governments doled out
maize seed and fertiliser, even where
soils were unsuitable. Towering maize
stalks filled fields like Roman legions; in
Zambia,the entrance to the farmers’
union is held up by two columns sculpt-
ed into cobs.
But using land to grow a single crop
increases the risk from pests and weather.
And a diverse diet is more nutritious. In
February Edgar Lungu, the president of
Zambia, asked“whether maize should be
the ultimate crop for survival as a peo-
ple”. Cultivating several different crops
reduces stunting in children, says Rhoda
Mofya-Mukuka of the Indaba Agricultur-
al Policy Research Institute, a Zambian
think-tank, although growing too many
makes small farms inefficient.
Zambia now gives farmers an elec-
tronic voucher to buy whatever farm
inputs they choose.Meanwhile, in the
gleaming labs of the Zambia Agricultural
Research Institute, a government agency,
researchers nurture shoots of disease-
resistant cassava in test tubes. They have
cultivated bitter-tasting sorghum, which
birds don’t like but brewers do. And they
have improved maize itself, developing
orange varieties rich in vitaminA.
The biggest push to diversify comes
from climate change. In 2010 researchers
from Columbia and Stanford universities
estimated that, by mid-century, global
warming could reduce maize production
in Africa by a fifth.Cassavacopes better
with drought and is shaking off its status
as “a poor man’s crop”. But many Afri-
cans love maize, and tastes change slow-
ly. Mr Kapami has never tried sorghum or
millet. As they say in neighbouring Mala-
wi, “Maize is life.”CHILANGA
Many Africans rely on a single crop. Can they acquire a taste for others?That’s not the way outJ
ULIUS MAADA BIO wasted no time be-
fore being sworn in as president of Sierra
Leone. Just an hour and a half after his
narrow election victory was announced
on April 4th, Mr Bio took the oath of office,
forgoing the state house for a dimly lit
room at the Radisson Blu hotel. The unusu-
al circumstances were prompted by securi-
ty concerns. During a long and tense cam-
paign Mr Bio had accused the All People’s
Congress (APC), the party of his opponent,
Samura Kamara, of trying to assassinate
him. Mr Kamara, for his part, said the vote
was rigged.
The election was Sierra Leone’s fourth
since its civil war ended in 2002. Memories
of the brutal 11-year conflict still linger. Ten-
sions based on ethnic, political and region-
al divisions simmered throughout the
campaign, then boiled over when the re-
sult was announced. Supporters of Mr
Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) at-
tacked followers of the APC, which previ-
ously held the presidency. Much of the vio-
lence has taken place in the SLPP’s
southern strongholds. But more than 100
people have also fled Kono, a volatile
swing state in the east.
Mr Bio, a former general who partici-
pated in two coups in the 1990s, and who
briefly took power himself in 1996, has
tried to calm things down. “No Sierra Leon-
ean should feel threatened by my ascen-
sion to power,” he has said, even promis-
ing to letAPCsupporters stay in their
government jobs. He has called on Sierra
Leone’s 7m people to reject tribalism and
regionalism, which have poisoned the
country’s politics. He has set a good exam-
ple himself, reaching out to Mr Kamara
(who still plans to challenge the result of
the election). The president will need to
work with the APC, which has a majority
in parliament.
Though it has huge mineral and dia-
mond deposits, Sierra Leone faces big eco-
nomic challenges. It is still recovering from
an outbreak of Ebola in 2014, which killed
4,000 people and scared away investors. A
slump in global commodity prices in 2015
deepened its woes. And the APCdid not
help matters. During its decade-long hold
on power, the party looted the country’s
coffers. A government audit recently re-
vealed that much of the money earmarked
for fighting Ebola during the crisis is unac-
counted for.
To the delight of voters, Mr Bio pledged
to tackle corruption by launching a com-mission to investigate past crimes and cre-
ating a special division in the country’s
high court to focus on cases of graft. All
government revenues will flow into a sin-
gle pot, he says, making the country’s fi-
nances easier to audit.
Education is another problem. Three
out of five adults in Sierra Leone are unable
to read or write. Though primary schools
are free in theory, parents often cannot af-
ford the books and uniforms. Mr Bio vows
to provide all that, and free secondary edu-
cation, with money saved by “reducing
leakages”. That may be unrealistic, given
the state of government finances. His tran-
sition team is taking stock of the situation.
Rumours abound that the kitty is empty.
So Mr Bio must convince foreign do-nors, such as the IMF, to trust him with
their aid, much of which has been sus-
pended or restricted because of the previ-
ous government’s failure to implement
economic reforms. Funds from a $224m
loan package negotiated lastsummer with
the IMFwere withheld over the APC’s fail-
ure to achieve stricter enforcement of im-
port taxes and collection of market-rate
royalties on mineral exports. Mr Bio has al-
ready made progress in both of these areas.
Most Sierra Leoneans are hopeful that
Mr Bio will make good on his campaign
slogan, “Salone foh betteh” (Sierra Leone
must improve), which continues to be
heard on the streets of Freetown, the capi-
tal. If he can curb corruption a bit, then
Sierra Leone may indeed get better. 7Sierra LeoneAt last, a little
hope
FREETOWN
But the new president may not have the
money to keep his promises