The ‘place’ that I would like to explore through various visual materials that I gathered during fieldwork in western Kenya in 2019, is the shamba, the smallholders’ maize field, in the context of the ongoing infestation of Fall Army Worm (FAW). Estimated to have caused a yield loss of between 20 to 50% of the Kenyan maize harvest last year, the ‘invasion’ of FAW offers an instance in which the framing of chemical pest control as an integral part of the drive towards food security becomes a widely promoted response to the threat or risk of FAW in a bid to protect the maize plant and thereby the harvest. Centering around the maize field is a cluster of various government actors and agencies, various players in the agrochemical industry down to the informal shopkeepers of local ‘agrovets,’ and farmers weighing their own need for food against the worms.’ The toxic dynamic that emerges between these players manifests in a discourse where food security is the principal concern, and the question of food safety is relegated to rumour, speculation or newspapers. This dynamic gives shape to a distribution of protection where the threat of FAW warrants a concerted national response, while the risk of toxic exposure is relegated to individual responsibility or excluded completely.
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