Aforecast can be right and still arrive too late to matter, and the same goes for a seed, a loan or a piece of advice. That thought followed me through the making of this edition. El Niño is now expected to run well into 2027, and the warnings have been clear and early. What we do not know is whether they will reach farmers in time to change what goes into the ground. Kenya
has researchers, universities and trained officers, yet our cover story shows how the link between that knowledge and the farm gate has frayed since agriculture was devolved. A US delegation and the country’s vice-chancellors are now asking whether the universities can help mend it.

Our Bt maize feature asks a similar question from another angle. The scientists have finished their work and the regulators have signed off, but the seed still waits on the courts. Wherever you stand on the technology, the case shows what uncertainty costs when the farmer is the one who pays for it. Money has its own last mile too. Around 80 percent of Kenyan agriculture operates informally, out of reach of most banks, which is why the new US$200 million climate finance mechanism, and the debate in our opinion pages about who can actually reach that majority, deserve close attention.

There is encouraging news as well. On the shores of Lake Jipe, families are growing vegetables under nets and drawing water with solar power, easing pressure on a shrinking lake and keeping elephants out of the crops. In Zimbabwe, Elizabeth Mpofu has spent decades showing that seeds, soil and women’s voices belong at the centre of food policy, and in the UN’s Year of the Woman Farmer her story could not be timelier. And in Nairobi, James Mureithi is teaching exporters that certification is earned long before the auditor arrives, not bought at the last minute.

Hardly any of these stories is about a shortage of ideas. They are about distance: between the lab and the field, the policy and the county, the forecast and the planting date. That is the space this magazine tries to work in.

Read on, and write to tell us where the last mile is longest in your corner of the continent.

I wish you a good harvest and a safe rainy season.

Dr Kawira Mutegi
Chief Editor