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Food crisis looms in the region in spite of current season of bumper harvest
Workers at a Kenyan dairy plant spill part of 10,000 litres of milk this month, saying the factory’s capacity had been overstretched. Photo/FILE
Posted Monday, February 22 2010 at 00:00
Food insecurity in Kenya has been the force behind the flourishing cross border trade in agricultural produce in East Africa.
Faced with unfavourable weather, ineffective agricultural policies, poor organisation of small-scale farmers and largely unresponsive research, the country has been unable to produce enough food for its people and has had to turn to its neighbours.
Last year, the country produced a total of 2.1 million metric tonnes of maize, the staple crop.
This was against an estimated consumption of 3.2 million tonnes, according to figures from the East African Grain Council.
Kenya has the largest deficit, according to statistics on the food situation, which project that as at June this year, Uganda and Rwanda will have a maize surplus of 409,000 tonnes and 206,500 tonnes, respectively.
Kenya, on the other hand, is set to have a shortfall of 714,000 tonnes, whereas the deficit in Tanzania is estimated at 447, 514 tonnes.
Ratemo Michieka of the University of Nairobi’s Faculty of Agriculture says Kenya is the second highest importer of food in sub-Saharan Africa, after Ethiopia.
Now, calls are being made for decisive action to turn around agricultural production and reduce poverty.
The country representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation, Castro Camarada, told a conference in Nairobi last week that over the past three years, there has been an unprecedented series of crises that have worsened the food situation.
Also, prolonged drought and governance issues have greatly affected the food situation, not only in Kenya but also regionally and globally.
A senior policy analyst at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis, John Omiti, said the situation was described as “alarming” in the 2009 Global Hunger Index.
This is due to a high population growth rate that is not in harmony with the rate of food production.
Among the factors that this has been attributed to are dependence on rain-fed agriculture and reluctance to apply new technologies to balance food supply with demand.
Only last year did the Kenyan government embark on promoting irrigation schemes that led to revival of the Bura and Hola schemes, besides injecting funds into irrigation schemes in Western Kenya.
The genesis of food deficits in Kenya is traced to the 1990s and has grown gradually over the years.
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