Everything is Connected to Food

Ruth Oniang’o

TRANSCRIPT

Mandla: Hello and welcome to Deeply Rooted, a conversation about the business of food in Africa. I’m Mandla Nkomo, the CEO of Partners in Food Solutions and on today's episode, I'm very honored to be joined by Professor Ruth Oniang’o, a trailblazer in nutrition, food security, agricultural development across Africa. Ruth is a founder and editor of the African Journal of Food, Agriculture and Nutrition and Development and has served as the Member of Parliament in Kenya, where she championed policies that improve food systems and supported smallholder farmers recognized globally as a leader and advocate. She received the prestigious Africa Food Prize in 2017 for her lifelong commitment to improving nutrition and livelihoods. Her work continues to inspire the next generation of leaders, and I would like to say I'm one of them and she's always been working to ensure that everybody has access to safe, nutritious food. Welcome to deeply rooted Dr. Ruth.

Ruth: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Mandla.

Mandla: It's like I was saying before we started recording. I think you you were always that voice of reason in every conference I've attended, you always the one person that brings us all to to to the center, uh, when we are straying. But many very few people know about why you ended up, you know, being the person that you are, an academic, a parliamentarian, and just a leading authority in all things food and nutrition. Could you tell us a bit of that story, Prof. Ruth?

Ruth: Well, I'll try it. I'll try to be brief. You know, it becomes books of it. But ah, you are right. You know, I almost everything I do or when I leave the country other than personal visits, it's just all about food, you know? And ah, the reason is that, um, when where I grew up, when I was born. Yeah. And and growing up, ah, I was surrounded by, ah, some young children whose stomachs were big. And at that time they said, oh, it was worms. Then there would be the worms. But, you know, and you just find maybe one child in a family. And it turned out eventually that it was kwashiorkor. And, and at that time, I was doing well in school. And my father, who, who really, um, valued the way I was performing, you know, expected me to become a medical doctor. Uh, they all do, right? Yes. Yeah, they all do. Ah. Medical doctor. And then, ah, as I grew up, I realized that, uh, this this particular cousin who had a big tummy, you know, it was because, oh, food is not is not being fed well. But this one child out of six or eight of them in the family, just the only one who had this issue, and we would even dig a hole and put him in it so he could stand up and walk. Imagine, of all those eight is the only one still alive and with a big family. But I said, I said then, oh, why do I have to do medicine? You know, I want many children. My mother had lost many children. I wanted to replace them. Why do I have to do medicine? And if I want many children, I can't be up going out at night treating people. It's just food, after all. It's just food. So from that time, that very young age, food for me was like, it is the first medicine. So, you know, as I went to study when I was leaving Kenya to go to the USA. They didn't. They didn't have nutrition in Kenya. They had what you call home economics. I couldn't do that because I was a scientist. I was a mathematician. And so I followed it up with nutrition coming back to cut it short, coming back to Kenya. It was like, oh, the only place I could teach was in home economics departments. So when I was at Kenyatta University are doing doing my ah, as as a lecturer at Kenyatta University in the Department of Home Economics, actually was now doing my PhD at the University of Nairobi. And as I grew in that department, eventually I became head of department, and I made sure I got it to become a faculty and then becoming a faculty. It created different departments. But the most important department for me then was one of, ah, food and nutrition and dietetics. And to date that one department at Kenyatta University, I was head of department of just two years. That one department is the producer of most nutritionists in Kenya right now.

Mandla: Congratulations and well done for for what is actually an enduring legacy by creating that, that that department at the university that has actually produced, uh, hundreds of nutritionists. Now, I have a question for you. And and the question is, I was in Zambia not too long ago, and at the university at Unza, University of Zambia, they told me that they struggled to graduate more than two food scientists every year. What what do you think we need to say to young people? To challenge them to take up a career like you did in, in, in food and nutrition and dietetics?

Ruth: I'm I'm surprised about that with the, you know, University of Zambia, because right now in Kenya, uh, that's really a very, very popular course right now, even at the master's degree level. And as you know, uh, Amandla, internationally, finally, people are talking about nutrition. People are talking not just food, but, you know, we talk about the rainbow. You know, it needs to be diverse. We need colored foods. We need to mix, uh, animal and and and and and and vegetable proteins, you know, and to also have nutrients and minerals from a diverse variety of foods and also to recognize that our own local foods in Africa, you know, without, ah, chemicals, you know, which have not been polluted or adulterated, that our own indigenous foods were very healthy foods. So I'm surprised that we have universities right now and we have countries which can't produce enough, um, nutritionists, food scientists, food food scientists. And and when I started off, my own PhD was done in a department of food science at Cabot. At that time, it was just food science. But I insisted that my degree was going to read a PhD in food science and nutrition. So nutrition, you sort of just continue pushing it. So it's important that, uh, when, when, when you actually have people trained in this, then they have many opportunities. You know, the the landscape for jobs is much wider for them. You know, they can be epidemiologists, you know, they can work in companies, they can work in rural development. Because imagine everything is connected to food. But we need to understand the science of it as well. For it to benefit us. We need to understand the science of it.

Mandla: I fully agree, Prof. Ruth. So if you are a young person out there and listening to to us, uh, today, uh, you've heard it for yourselves that, uh, one of the most rewarding and fulfilling and societally significant careers you can have is a career in food science and nutrition. And you heard it from, uh, Prof. Ruth today. But, Prof. Ruth, one of the things that I know you're very passionate about, and that's one thing that I remember the last time we spoke, we spoke at length on is this whole concept of, uh, local foods. Yes. Uh, traditional foods. Uh, what what do you think we need to do to to get consumers, uh, to reconnect with these first foods? These foods that are, are, are really disappearing from the palates and the plates of many Africans.

Ruth: You know, I, I, I, I started all my education here in Kenya. Then I went to the USA. Uh, I enjoyed, uh, their cuisine, you know, some of it, um, someone who likes to try many cuisines, but I still there were certain foods I grew up on that I missed. Yeah, I would still miss. And ah, I always encourage families, parents, mothers that if you want your children to have a diverse, ah palate a appetite. Start early, start early. So you find my children who have been, ah, mostly town bred and some have gone to the US. They miss these indigenous vegetables, you know, which some other people will not eat. You know, they, they call them bitter, you know. Oh, they are slippery. Oh yuck. You know, they are no good. But but I, I and then my grandchildren have come here, they have tasted this food and they say, grandma, when you come, please bring some of those leaves for us. So you have to start early. Yes, you have to start to start early. And ah, I, I believe that for any culture, the best food is the all your own food that you grew up on the foods that were around you for any culture. And so when you taste these other foods, you know, it's just because you want to try them. But like in Kenya, you know, we still come back to the ugali because for Kenya, it's like ugali maize meal is it's as if we, we, we produced it. It was grown here fast, but it didn't originate here. It came from Mexico. But my grandmother reminded me of that times, colonial days, when they were going around actually campaigning for farmers to adopt, uh, maize and forget about finger millet and sorghum. And for that reason, because maize is easier to process, it tends to give you a product that is bland. Uh, it it it it has been accepted more more than the millets because millets have a lot of work, you know. And also you have to have you have it's like an acquired taste for the millets. But we still have to struggle encouraging that. Ah. One can always mix, you know, supplement, you know, ah food to food and make it more nutritious. So you and you emphasize nutrition. So I know our local foods Mandla were actually very nutritious. We had diverse diets. They were they were actually very natural. No chemicals added, no processing and so on. But but you see, the minute you now adopt, ah, a foreign palate, you know, you, you, you begin to go away from your natural foods, you begin to acquire even some, ah, you know, some body structures and some, some, some, some diseases, you know, which are never natural to you. And as I've as I've lived, I'll soon be eighty years old, I can see. I've been observing this. Imagine I've been observing this. And I can just tell you are that a lot of what we see today in terms of are diseases, are non-communicable, are has to do with what we eat, you know, and with the environment. That is so true. Are would you agree? Prof. Ruth, that uh, as food scientists, uh, as, uh, you know, professors and engineers, we have done a disservice by not creating, you know, processes that allow for us to make it easy for people to, to, to, to consume these traditional foods, for example, cassava. We all know that if you uproot cassava, the clock starts ticking. You have a very short time to mill it, to dry it. Yeah. And and make it available for, for cooking. But if you live in the city. Yeah, all those options are not there. But food science surely should respond to that.

Mandla: What's what's your response to the fact that food science and maybe engineering and and processing has done a disservice to these African foods?

Ruth: No, I won't call this a disservice. You know, it's just a it's a growth issue. You know, even in Kenya, when I was registering in the Department of Food Science, you know, they didn't have many people graduating. They even limited the number of people that were graduating, you know, so the curriculum evolves, you know, people's interests widen, and then they begin to see there's wider scope and one has to just continue. It's like preaching. Yeah. And so things actually change. So I won't call that. And personally I, I got connected to the International Union of Food Science and, and and and ah technology a long time ago and, and you know it's it's and brought it to Kenya even. And now we see that Africa wide we are collaborating with them. We are collaborating with them at the the Association of African Universities. So it's a collaboration. And then you can now see what you can do. You can see what how technologies which are from the west can actually be transferred to Africa to feed what is needed in Africa. It's not just direct transfer. You know what we used to call appropriate technology? It's just a question of adapting different technologies. So like in the West, you know they have freezer freezer facilities here. Freezer facilities on a hot continent hot throughout may not work the same way. So when you. Now we need fermentation. Yeah. Yeah. So then we have our own systems. We have our own drying. smoking. We have fermentation, which is very healthy, by the way, fermented products as you know that for the gut. Yeah. So you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a learning process and it requires investing in research. That's right. It it requires exchanges between institutions. It requires leaderships of universities which are open minded. It requires people who know what they are doing. And I think a lot of it, if I will not blame the professionals, if anything, I would blame the leaderships at various levels, you know? Yes, uh, for example, research, agricultural research, agricultural research, you know, we hardly get moneys to go into our own crops. You know, sometimes they get to be called orphan crops. And they say, why are they orphaned crops? You know, just because they are African. Yes. And getting to be forgotten. So it requires a support from the top, but also are scientists themselves to be innovative and to be persistent and to say that we want what is ours and we are going to develop it.

Mandla: I fully agree. And and that brings me to to this question. You know, as someone who's won the the Africa Food Prize in twenty seventeen, I know you think deeply about this issue. So recently, the State of Food and Agriculture report was released, as you know, by FAO. Yes, I, I was left really feeling disheartened. And here's why. It says that we as the African continent will continue to contribute the greatest number of hungry people in the world. Yes, up to the turn of the century. What are we getting wrong? Why do you think we are not able to shake this tag of being a hungry continent?

Ruth: And you know, at my age, I know that at one time we were not we were not a hungry continent. We could actually export food. And of course, that time maybe food was being narrowly defined. It was just grains, you know. But food is different. Now imagine the African continent right now. Just look at it. When you even fly around or drive around, how so green we are? How much water? We have vegetables all over the place. Then you go into a hotel and you ask for vegetables, and they give you one teaspoon of a vegetable. And then. So, um, the whole world, you know, it's just that hunger is on the increase. The whole world. And they say Africa will continue to be hungry because we are the fastest growing population. We have a lot of young people. And for me right now, while I'm still breathing. Ah, it's just to appeal to our young people to say no to hunger in Africa. There's no reason why Africa should be leading in hunger numbers. Because we are the richest, most blessed continent on earth. Even with climate change, we can still grow things. There's still a lot of land available. And what? A lot of water resource. So that's why I'm putting this responsibility, this call on the leadership. Feed your people fast. You be the, you know, be the champion of saying I will like like a father in a household. Mandla. You say I will feed my family. You know, I'll make sure my family is fed. It's not like we lack the food. We just are not serious about providing food, especially for those who need it. Some have too much, Some even just waste because they have too much. And then there are so many who go hungry. And then when we go hungry, all the media is on us that we are hungry. Right now the media is elsewhere showing starving children. If you go to the USA, there's hunger also in some of those communities. But you know how hunger is one season in Africa, all the media is there. We have to also, you know, change the narrative. We have to also but, you know, take control of some of the media that comes out. I'm not saying we don't have hunger, but I'm saying we need it needs to be balanced and we need to control it. And we need to make sure that we are actually benefiting from what this continent of ours has to offer.

Mandla: I agree with you. So I'm hearing you say that, uh, a big part of our challenge is, uh, is a is a human challenge. It's a, it's a people challenge. And and therefore I have a question for you that there's two groups of people that often are seen as antagonists on the African continent. That's the public sector and our policy makers and the private sector. How do we bring them around the same table to discuss and fix food systems in Africa? What do you think is the missing ingredient, Prof. Ruth?

Ruth: Ah, the missing ingredient. As you know, the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs. Yeah. Which will end in twenty thirty. I love I like the SDG number seventeen. It talks about partnerships talks about collaboration. You know it doesn't make sense sitting here saying me I won't eat this you know and we won't do ABCd. We don't like the private sector you know and others going no will eat only organic. We don't even like GMOs and so on. You know, as we we get lost in all these, uh, conflicts and words. People are going hungry, people are going hungry. And I think many people don't even see hunger. They only talk about it. For them, it's just numbers. But we I think we are all beginning to see what hunger looks like. It doesn't matter what part of the world you are in. That's the hunger we are talking about. And I think in this twenty first century, it is completely unacceptable. So collaboration and that collaboration. And that's why I still keep coming back to our leadership, to our governments political leadership, that they are the ones to regulate. They are the ones to enforce and they are the ones to facilitate. And that is possible for our government to say we shall have private sector, public sector working together, public private partnership. You know, it's just become a buzz word, but we don't really do it seriously. So I feel we still have hunger. We still have food insecurity. People are going without, children. You know, imagining children going hungry is not acceptable, while others are completely overfed to the extent that they become sick. It requires proper leadership and to give guidance, and I know it can be done.

Mandla: I agree with you. I agree with you. I I've got nothing to add to that impassioned appeal. I know that you you are a doer. You don't just speak, but you do. And and you founded, um, the African Journal of Food, Agriculture and Nutrition and Development. And I know that this is, uh, the this is your pride and joy and, uh, and really one of your significant pieces of work. How do you see that that journal are contributing to shaping policy, to shaping research agendas, to shaping the direction that Africa is going to take as far as food, agriculture and nutrition are concerned.

Ruth: Thank you. Thank you. Mandla. You know, this journal actually is like I gave birth to it some twenty five years ago. It's your last. But. But but when? When I thought about it, I, you know, it it it had been bothering me too much, you know, and I said, I've worked on these issues for so long. Nothing seems to be changing. Nobody's listening, you know? And, ah, I just woke up and asked a few friends across the globe, and they helped me, and I started this journal. I changed the name once from nutrition only now to make it more food systems approach. And it it reaches many people again. It's open access so anybody can access it without paying. We get many papers from all over, but the focus mostly is in on Africa, you know, and Africans being able to tell their story. And we are always looking for people to give us special issues. You know, you can just have a theme or a university might want to market itself, or a group of scientists have an issue they want to talk about out there. And, you know, we can't just keep this information to ourselves as scientists. Exactly. No, no no, no, it needs to get out there. Yeah. So that that's how I see it. And getting policymakers to talk science and, you know, young people also to engage internationals, you know, those who want to help Africa, you know, and also sharing what we have in Africa with the rest of the world.

Mandla: I fully agree. And and and Prof. Ruth, I, I really want to thank you for, for this great and enriching conversation. Like I said right at the beginning, every time I've reached out to you, I've walked away totally enriched and and challenged, and I feel that you have challenged us today to say, let's go back to to people, because food systems transformation does not mean anything if it doesn't change the people that matter. So that's where we need to go to. We need to go back to basics and build it from there and learn from people. Any final words from you, Prof. Ruth?

Ruth: No, no, I've enjoyed this. Thank you so much for reaching out to me and I wish you all the best with subsequent, uh, conversations. I really enjoy that conversation.

Mandla: Thank you so much, Professor Ruth Oniang’o, for joining us on Deeply Rooted. Don't miss out on any of our conversations about the business of food in Africa by subscribing at our website, deeply rooted or on Apple podcast. I'm Angela Nkomo, thank you for joining us.