The Last Hunger Season

by Thurow, Roger

• ISBN13: 9781610390675
• ISBN10: 1610390679
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-05-29
• Publisher: Public Affairs

Summary

Africa's small farmers, who comprise two-thirds of its population, toil in a time warp, living and working essentially as they did in the 1930s. Without mechanized equipment, fertilizer, or irrigation; using primitive storage facilities, roads, and markets; lacking capital, credit, and insurance; they harvest only one-quarter the yields of Western farmers, half of which spoil before getting to market. But in 2011 one group of farmers in Kenya came together to try to change their odds for success--and their families' futures. Roger Thurow spent a year following their progress. In The Last Hunger Season, the intimate dramas of the farmers' lives unfold amidst growing awareness that to feed the world's growing population, food production must double by 2050. How will the farmers, Africa, and a hungrier world deal with issues of water usage, land ownership, foreign investment, corruption, GMO's, the changing role of women, and the politics of foreign aid?

Table of Contents

Maps	p. viii
Prologue	p. xi
Simiyu (The Dry Season)	p. 1
Masambu (Preparing the Land)	p. 37
Wafula (The Rains)	p. 69
Wanjala (The Hunger)	p. 117
Wekesa (The Harvest)	p. 169
Sirumbi (Second Planting)	p. 205
Sikuku (Festival Days)	p. 251
Acknowledgments	p. 263
Index	p. 267
Photographs follow page	p. 116
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