Nairobi, Aug. 2 -- There is a precise science to planting maize. You wait for the rains, spend a small fortune on certified seed and DAP fertiliser, hire a tractor to plough the land, and break your back under the scorching sun. You do all this with the blind faith of a devout believer, trusting that in a few months, your three acres will yield a bountiful harvest.

What the character development school of farming quickly teaches you is that you are rarely farming for yourself. In Kenya, the moment you put seed into the soil, you become an unwitting philanthropist running a free, open-air buffet for every opportunistic creature in a three-kilometer radius.

Take my current three-acre maize field, for instance. In May, the crop had just hi...