Show more seriousness to end food shortages

Climate change is making rain-fed agriculture difficult.. [iStocckphoto]

The United Nations released a report titled, ‘The State of food security and nutrition in the world’, on Sunday. The report says 2.3 billion people globally are threatened by difficulties in getting enough food.

More specifically, the report says 14.4 million Kenyans are undernourished. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the report shows that 43.6 million Kenyans, from a population of 53 million, could not afford a healthy diet. That is how bad the situation is, and when you throw in the disruptions caused by the Ukraine war, things can only get worse.

Millions of Kenyans are going hungry amid soaring prices of unga and other essential food commodities in an economy that appears stagnant. While commodity prices have risen exponentially, salaries have not and unemployment and job loses continue to bite.

The government, in a bid to cover the maize shortfalls that Agriculture CS Peter Munya blamed on some individuals, recently lowered tax on maize imports. Yet despite the cheaper imports, in the midst of drought and lack of purchasing power, the importation of maize is unlikely to give ordinary Kenyans the much-needed respite.

Drought and the threat of hunger are not new occurrences in Kenya. Consecutive governments have been confronted with this malady but, unfortunately, none has taken concrete measures to end them. Indeed, there is no shortage of blueprints that can yield results, but the governments have been long on rhetoric and short on action to actualise them.

The Galana Kulalu project into which Sh15 billion was sunk without tangible results easily comes to mind. Time has come for the country’s leadership to take the bull by the horns.

Climate change is making rain-fed agriculture difficult. That should be reason enough for the government to roll up its sleeves. It must step up its efforts to save the situation by building more dams, waters pans, supporting irrigation, subsidising farm inputs, hiring adequate agricultural extension officers, among other interventions. We can feed ourselves.