African maize is facing a drought crisis, but new ideas are taking root

To Wawira Njiru, maize is the taste of home.

“When I was a kid, my favorite food was ugali — still is,” she says. Ugali is the staple food of Kenya, a thick polenta-like porridge made from ground cornmeal, and served with stewed beef and vegetables.

It’s popular through Eastern and Southern Africa, too. “I’ve traveled to a couple of countries, like Zambia recently, where they say, it’s not food without their version of ugali,” says Njiru.

Her love of food inspired her to launch Food4Education in 2012. The Kenyan nonprofit began serving school meals to just 25 children, and has since scaled to dish up lunch for 600,000 kids across Kenya.

It’s hardly surprising that maize, also known as corn, is the continent’s most widely grown crop, grown across around 40 million hectares on the conti