In 1730, an Italian doctor, Dr. Gaspal Casar diagnosed a ‘new disease’ among his poor patients which he described as “mal de la Rosa”. Later, the disease came to be known as “the disease of 4Ds: dermatitis, diarrhea and dementia, and death”. A link to maize as the dietary staple was made. This recognition reduced the value of maize as a human food, but elevated its role as animal feed. On the African continent, maize had been introduced as a food crop during the slaving years in the 15th century. The discories made in Europe about maize did not affect the status of maize as a food crop on the continent. Unfortunately for Africa, the entrenchment of maize in the African diet has continued to date. Because of the chemical imbalance it induces among users, the crop has over centuaries transformed the character of Africans in very fundamental ways: Phillip Mayer, in his book, ‘Townsmen or Tribesmen’, summarizes the African’s “schizophrenic personality”, which he describes as “subdued with the gun, brought into the fold by the bible, and into civilization by (forced) labor” A matriarchy of sorts seems to be evolving across the African nation (although it is tempered by an autocratic patriarchal order). Increasingly, there has been a growing alienation of the African man from the home (7a-d).

Before enslavement, Africans were strong thriving peoples, who produced surplus food for trade with other world communities with whom they came into contact. In his book, ‘Africa South of the Sahara’, Robert Stoch informs us that, “The underdevelopment of Africa was not an original nor a natural state.” Trade routes in and out of the continent were well developed as were centers of commerce. Enterprises like cloth weaving were well developed, especially in West Africa.

According to the book ‘Black Rice: The African origins of Rice cultivation in the Americas.’ Portuguese explores, who had been exploring the Western coastline of Africa since the early fifteenth century encountered people who were “black, tall, and big, their bodies well formed,” as they sailed southwards beyond the Senegal river. North of the river, they had passed people who were “brownish, small, lean, ill nourished”. The area spanning the upper guinea coast, Senegal River area to Liberia was fertile, highly populated and rich in all manner of foods. By 1455, a trading post off the Mauritanian coast was established, initially to exchange foods and other commodities on sale. But, the history of the region has never been the same since. Soon after this period, both the slave trade, and the mass cultivation of maize engulfed the region, gradually extending southwards, and internally. On the East Coast, Arab intrusion spread maize inwards, while from Southern Africa, Dutch influence promoted the crop among the natives. The spread of maize was dispersed across any remaining region during colonial occupation.

After the end of slave trade, it seems that West Africa which was most adversely affected rediscovered their traditional crops to some extent, unlike the rest of the continent. Today, many Africans (Diaspora Africans included) view maize (corn) as ‘the food of their fore-fathers’. And on the sub-continent, maize is promoted and supported by government agenciesas a food crop. Its alien origins have long been forgotten by modern Africans. According to McCann for example, Malawians of the late 20th centaury highly regard maize as ‘chi mango ndi moyo’ (maize is our life) and revere it as ‘chi mango cha makola’ (maize of the ancestors). East Africans were probably the last to embrace the cultivation of maize on a large scale as a trading commodity, and increasingly as a dietary staple. While in the Southern part of the continent Dutch settlement ensured early large scale maize cultivation, in the three East African countries, significant expansion and large scale cultivation of maize was only instituted after their partitioning. However, ‘mercantile imperialism’ had been going on for a longer period. From 1860-1880 for example, “the kikuyu had provided most of the food for caravans arriving in the East African interior” (8a-f).

After formal colonization however a deliberate escalation in cultivation was instituted; so that by the beginning of the 20th century, they were already engaged in large scale maize trade (and its consumption as dietary staple). According to Caroline Elkins in ‘Britain‘s Gulag,‘ “the Kikuyu ... adapted to the new colonial economy by increasing their own maize production”. Today however, commercial maize cultivation is limited only to Western Kenya. How did this happen? McCann gives a chronology to the introduction of hybrid maize in Kenya: ‘Kenya‘s first maize research programme began in 1955 (two years after the end of the maumau emergency) ... The Kenya government officially released Kitale H611 in 1964, just after Kenya gained independence ...The success of the Kitale programme was followed by similar success in a later, parallel crop research program in Katumane‘.

By the time the British left Kenya at her Independence in 1963, hybrid maize was the major source of calories, especially in Western Kenya having been promoted sometimes coercively. It was also the major food for urbanites, and government institutions, including barding schools.The hybrid maize grown for African consumption is homogenously white; and it is considered nutritionally inferior to native maize. The native crop, which tends to come in a variety of colors, is said to be higher in micronutrients, especially in pro-vitamin A. Communities that subsist on maize hybrids are for example more vulnerable to vitamin A deficiency: high incidences of blindness, developmental problems, and diseases associated with a weakened immune system are common.

Nutritional research on Africans and “their diseases” however generated alot of scientific interest globally. During the following period, postmortem studies were undertaken on the brains of male natives from certain tribes in Kenya and elsewhere. The findings of these studies helped entrench the prevailing thought by the eugenics society, that Africans were inferior beings: native brains were found to be primitive and small. The “toto brain” description of adult Africans is founded in these studies. The perception of the Africans’ inferiority has hardened as their capacity to manage their affairs independently has been questioned because of the relative underdevelopment across SSA. The the high disease burden, poverty, violence etc and the place of maize in this scenario are discussed in detail in the book ‘The Heritage of Maize is Killing Africans: The Kenyan story’ (9a-g).

The Kenyan state, like The Republic South Africa, was arranged according to a pre-conceive social economic order during colonial construction: race privilege, followed by class construction. Ones’ race and economic order determined the diet: European foods consisted of Irish potatoes and meat (in addition to dairy and wheat products, fruits, vegetables etc). Asians were allowed rice, wheat and curries; while Africans were allowed Ugali (maize meal) and green vegetables (both low sources of B vitamins and adequate protein). At Independence, this stratification was retained, as an elite class of Africans replaced the departing British.Because of the centralization of the nation’s resources in the central highlands, Central Kenyans have benefited disproportionally from this arrangement.

This class formation represented a reproduction of the European socio-economic order, centuries earlier. The class struggle in Kenya remains unresolved and very much alive today, as poverty has intensified. Throughout the country, there is a run-away corruption culture, thievery/insecurity and sporadic violence involving gangs or ethnicities. These have come to overshadow the significant achievements that the country has attained, since independence. So that for example, while Kiambu (in Central Kenya) boasts some of the most accomplished, enterprising and wealthiest of Kenyans, it also hosts some of the poorest Kenyans. While the disparities are not as acute in other Kenyan regions, the dysproportionate development in Central Kenya compared to other other parts of the country is glaring. During the voluntary evaluation by the African Union’s Peer Review Mechanism, the following comment by Graca Machel resonated with many: “Neither good economics nor politics seem to be playing a part in some of the country’s political decisions“ (10a-g).

The extreme dietary inequity occasioned by a maize diet handicaps the affected to become non-productive and dependent, as learning and innovation are curtailed. The dementia of pellagra ensures that a progressive loss of traditional skills is the norm. There is a growing realization that the ‘trickle-down’ economics that we continue to embrace make promises that they can not deliver; especially in communities with many other underdevelopment burdens. Maize is the reason why African capitalism is mainly consumptive. Africa’s leaders continue to subject their citizens to an under-developing diet during the most formative years of thier lives: childhood. It has been said that many grew up in the same milliue, and therefore see nothing wrong with this status quo.Yet a close look at most SSA countries shows that the pattern of maize consumption as the main dietary staple is not random. Some even see ‘imperialistic designs’. According to Arturo Warman, “When the impact of hybrid maize is taken into account, it becomes obvious that equity can only be achieved with affirmative action in the most impoverished areas.”

The continent pays highly for its large underdevelopment burden in bad leadership, a shrinking middle class and net capital flight from the sub-continent. For Nigeria for example, “Data from the UN’s Centre on Transnational Corporations indicate that between 1970 and 1980 Nigeria received $3.8 billion in foreign investments, but experienced a net loss of $ 2.7billion because of the reparations of $6.5 billion in fees, royalties, and profits.”(**). A few examples highlight the leadership incapacity: In Kenya, a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) deal with a Danish firm left a loophole for “Bio-theft” from the country’s National parks. In Liberia, a graft watchdog reported being threatened by a Presidential Adviser for revealing that a budget item for the ministry of state was costed twice. And in the DR Congo, chiefs gave away prime forests, estimated to be a fortune in Europe, in exchange for bags of sugar. The chiefs (like the wildlife officials) had received no legal advice.

Africans are not inferior or stupid or primitive or unhygienic etc: they grow up with varying degrees of protein malnutrition, and this marks their capacity and character for life. Williams sees the forces of underdevelopment on the continent as being governed by imperialistic designs, which are both global and localized within individual countries: “Black on Black imperialism” has been observed. By pursuing discriminatory and repressive policies, African leaders have failed to develop Africa’s human resource; and this exposes Africa to external exploitation: ?Blacks neither own nor control the resources of their own land.? (11-12a-f).

According to McCann, maize has remained “an object of scientific study, part and parcel of the new science of development that emerged full blown after the 1960s, and continues into the 21st century”. This new science of development laid the foundation for a symptom-oriented medical system, whereby for example the pellagra rashes that became common after the institution of a maize diet were attributed to infections due to “bad hygiene”. In the book ‘The Heritage of Maize Is Killing Africans: The Kenyan Story’, a picture of kavirondo (Western Kenya) women taken before serious colonial manipulation of the diet (The Nordic African Institute) shows well nourished women with flawless complexions, when compared to their modern counterparts who are obviously malnourished, as are their children.. In his book ‘Disease in the Colonial State’, Osaak Olumwullah makes reference to a hut which initially “was used for supplying posho (maize meal) to laborers, but it later became a dispensary”. Maize industrial products are widely incorporated in modern foods as a sweetener, filler etc, (among other industries) The significance of this to human health is similar to the impact of a maize diet and is discussed in the coming book.

The push for white hybrid maize was initially motivated and promoted by colonial governments for the global starch industry. That Africans have adopted this as their main dietary staple reflects on the paucity of a readership culture, and/or deliberate neglect. In part, this is related to the non-transparent mode of operation in most African countries: many, Kenya included are unable to allow the writing of their true National history. Usually the history of the Nation emphasizes mostly that of the tribes that have been in power. Communities that have traditionally been marginalised economically tend to be more severely marginalised in all other spheers, including nutritional: the geography of hybrid maize mirrors that of poverty, malnutrition and disease; this is quite apparent in Kenya, although as the class disparities continue to increase, peasants from all communities are now adversely affected.

It is not uncommon to see scholars from the most marginalised communities pleading for a nurturance of a readership culture; yet unless the tools of underdevelopment can be minimized in affected communities, the slide among the youth towards decadent behaviour is inevitable. Brain development is maximal during the first 5 years of life; for a majority of African children during this period, malnutrition prevents optimum development. Other systems are also similarly affected by malnutrition, setting the stage for premature decay. This lays the foundation for disease, poverty and early deaths. These issues are discussed in the book The Heritage of Maize is Killing Africans: The Kenyan Story (12a-e).

7a. Arturro Warman: Corn and Capitalism. The university of North Carolina Press, 2003.

7b. Phillip Mayer: Townsmen or Tribesmen. Oxford University Press, 1961.

7c. Weisner, Bradley, kilbride: African Families in Crisis of Social Change. Bergin, 1997

7d. Judith A. Carney: Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas. Havard University Press, 2000.

7e.Marvin Miracle: Maize in Tropical Africa. University of Wiscousin Press, 1966

7f. Wurtman RJ et al, ‘Nutrition and the Brain.’ Reven Press, 1977

7g. Robert Stock: Africa South of the Sahara: A Geographical Intepretation. The Guilford Press,1995.

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8c. J. M. Lonsdale: The Politics of Conquest: The British in Western Kenya 1894-1908. The Historical Journal, 20 (4): 841-870, 1970.

8d. Chancellor Williams: The Destruction of Black Civilization. Kendal/Hunt Publishing co., 1971.

8e. William R, Ochieng: Themes in Kenyan History. Heinman Kenya Ltd., 1990.

8f. Matsuda Motoji: Urbanization From Below: Creativity And Soft Resistance in the Everyday Life of Maragoli Migrants. Kyoto University Press, Japan, 1998.

8g. K. Kanyinga A. Kiondo: The New Local Politics in East Africa. The Scandinavia Institute of African Studies Uppsala, 1994.

9a. H. L. Gordon: The mental capacity of the African: A paper made before the African circle. J. Royal African Society 33(132): 226-242, 1934.

9b. Godwin Murunga: A Review of Histories of The Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya And End Of Empire. W.W Norton and co., 2005.

9c. Brenton B, ‘Pellagra and Nutrition Policy: Lessons from the Great Irish famine and the New South Africa.’ Nutritional Anthropology 22(1): 1998.

9d. M. Small T. Jayne: Maize in East Africa: “seeds” of success in retrospect. International Food Policy Research Institute. Washington, DC 2006

9e. Eric Namwayi: Towns Robbing Wives of Their Husbands. Sunday standard30th October,2005.

9f. Nepads: African Peer Review Mechanism-Kenya. July 2006-January 2007

9g. 25b, Peter Cummings Thiatah: Alert over food security.Sunday standard.6.11.05*

10a.Alex Kareithi: ‘A tale of Opulance amidst squalor in Sagana.’ Sunday Standard 12th November, 2005.

10b. A. Ogot and W.R. Ochieng: Decolonization and Independence in Kenya. 1940-1963.

10c. Orr, Gilks: The physique and Health of two African Tribes. 1931 Medical Research Council studies on nutrition, special report. The Standard : Minster calls for measures to curb Maternal Deaths. July 13nth 2007.

10d. Fiona Mackenzie: Department of Geography, and Environmental Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa. Contested Ground, Colonial narratives and The Kenyan

10e. Osaak Olumwullah: Dis-ease in The Colonial State: Medicine, Society and Social Change Among The Abanyore of Western Kenya. Greenwood press.

10f. . R. N. O. K’Okul: Maternal and Child Health in Kenya: A Study of Poverty and Malnutrition in Saamia. The Finish Society for Development Studies and The Scandinavia Institute of African Studies, 1991.

11a. R. N. O. K’Okul: HIV/AIDS, The Disease and Hunger complications causing confusion in Rural Western Kenya: a case study of Katolo. African Journal of Food and Nutritional Security 1(1):60-70, 2001.

11b. Walingo M. K.: Dietary Implications of Dairy Development in Vihiga District, Kenya. Itana Nutrition e- society

11c. Joseph Ssennyonga: Maragoli Population Study. Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, England, 1976

11d. Adapted from the Guardian: Africa Insight: DR Congo Chiefs Give Away Forests For Bags of Sugar. Daily Nation June

11e. John Oucho, ‘Undercurrents of Ethnic conflict in Kenya.’ 2002. Also, Wikipedia the free encyclopedia.

11f. Eric Williams ‘Capitalism and Slavery.’ The University of North Carolina Press, 1994.

12a. Andrew Hacker: Two Nations Black and White, Separate, Hostile, and Unequal. Ballantine Publishers, 1992.

12b. Salim Lone: Another 100 years of Poverty in Africa looms large. DN

12c. Adapted from The Guardian: Africa Insight: DR Congo Chiefs Give Away Forests For Bags of Sugar. Daily Nation June 1st 2007.

12d. B A Mutoro: Women Working Wonders: Small scale farming and the role of women in Vihiga district, Kenya. A case study of maragoli. Thela publishers, Amsterdam, 1997.

12e. Egara Kabaji: Nurturing a reading Culture is possible, Sunday standard, 22nd January, 2006. Andrew Hacker: Two Nations Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal. Ballantine Publishers, 1992.