The poor are the real victims of NASA's boycott campaign

The National Super Alliance nationwide boycott campaign for products from Bidco Africa, Safaricom Ltd and Brookside Dairies together with their subsidiaries for allegedly funding the Jubilee Government needs to be interrogated soberly.

Historically, the first documented economic boycott was the Stamp Act of 1765 when Americans refused to pay a British tax imposed on the colonies of British America and required that many printed materials be produced on stamped paper produced in London.

Past boycotts

The second documented economic boycott was championed by an Irish nationalist politician and one of the most powerful figures in the British House of Commons, Charles Stewart Parnell.

Parnell, the founder of the Land League to fight for just treatment in housing and land which culminated in the first peasant rebellion, coined the term boycott in 1880 when describing the ostracism of Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott by his Irish neighbours. Such tactics were effective in the struggle of Irish peasants against English landlords. Tenants then faced barriers to ownership and paid increasingly high rents that left them destitute.

Similarly, India’s Mahatma Gandhi encouraged Indians to boycott British goods and buy Indian goods instead. This helped to revitalise local economies in India and hurt British investments in the country. In the fight against Apartheid in South Africa, blacks were encouraged to boycott white-owned businesses to drive them out of business.

In the Kenyan context NASA hopes that if their supporters boycott products from, say - Brookside Dairies, the largest milk processing company in the country controlling 45 per cent of the market as at January 2016, they will cripple President Uhuru Kenyatta’s financial base.

NASA’s call to cripple Brookside comes at a time when the company has purchased local milk processor Buzeki to add to its chain of acquisitions that include Spin knit in 2013, Delemare and Ilara.

The Opposition hopes that by frustrating Brookside’s market entry into Eastern, Western and Coast areas where it is recruiting farmers in a bid to raise the supply of the product following an expansion that doubled its uptake capacity, Uhuru will be forced to the negotiation table with them.

Come to think of it, who does the boycott hurt most? It is hurting more the ordinary man – who NASA claims to represent- than the owners of the targeted firms.

It is common knowledge that agriculture is the mainstay of the Kenyan economy, contributing 26 per cent directly and 25 per cent indirectly to the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The sector accounts for 65 per cent of Kenya’s total exports and supports about 80 per cent of the rural population livelihoods.

Statistics from the Kenya Dairy Board show that the dairy sub-sector is the single largest and fastest growing sector. Kenya has one of the most developed dairy sub-sector in sub-Sahara.

The Kenya dairy sector has grown to one of the best examples of agri-business in the continent which has seen neighbouring countries often sending delegations of farmers and Agriculture Ministry officials to visit dairy milk processors, farmers and related services. Rwanda for example even sought Government of Kenya assistance to help train dairy farmers in Rwanda.

The M-pesa effect

For Safaricom, one of its products, M-pesa has had the greatest impact on Kenyan economy. From a relatively simple solution, launched in 2007, which allowed individuals to transfer cash to one another, M-pesa has grown into a sophisticated system with a number of functions catering to a wide range of needs and services, and accounting for 98 per cent of all mobile money transactions in the country.

Farmers also benefit from mobile apps supported by the network operator. There are over 28 million customers on the service.  According to a KPMG analysis, for every Sh1 revenue generated by Safaricom, an additional Sh2 is added to the economy.

Safaricom has direct jobs, indirect jobs resulting from multiplier effects of the operating expenditure and lastly induced jobs that occur due to the payment of salaries and wages to people directly employed by Safaricom.

The writer is Farmers Party leader [email protected]