Food Insecurity:Again?

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Since the millennium development goals were set in the early 90s, food insecurity has intensified in Kenya. The insecurity is not associated with war like most African countries, but sheer negligence and lack of proper strategy to curb famine and drought.
Ironically, most of the people affected by food insecurity are the pastoralist communities and small-scale maize farmers in areas where they experience one farming season. These are the producers and if anything they should be the last to complain about the food.

Laikipia which is one of the affected counties once held the pride of being a major producer of maize and animal product. In fact, Ng’arua division ranked somewhere near Trans Mara and Uasin Gishu. Mostly the farmers here have adopted early maturing maize varieties like Pioneer 30G19, Panna 3M and 520 however, the harvests have averaged ten bags per acre as a result of depreciating soil fertility. After harvesting in October and November, most farmers in Laikipia are tricked to a second season due to unreliable September-November rain, but most cases the maize ends up scorched by the January sun in the most critical tussling stage.

Most the families’ land averages 5 acres it’s fast reducing as a result of land fragmentation. Therefore, most families end up with 10 to 20 bags per season which is supposed to cater for their economic and dietary needs hence food insecurity. You find that in most homesteads, they have Githeri for lunch and Ugali for supper on almost every single day in a year. This makes their food storage deplete fast, and they soon end up with nothing at all.

To stop this, the county and national government should focus on drilling boreholes, building dams so that farmers move from the failing rain-fed agriculture to irrigated agriculture. If this is done, there will be multiple growing seasons per year; farmers will begin growing high producing maize varieties, and they will also be able to diversify their agriculture. As those who practice animal husbandry, the agricultural extension should be increased to enlighten the pastoralist to improve their cattle breed to high milk producing milk varieties that can survive in the same habitats. Range management should be the improving grazing regimes, helping to make the pastures sustainable and also ensure the grazing density and intensity are hindered to.

The fight against food insecurity can be easily won. Enough research has been done and that is lacking is policies, proper implementation, and the effort. The primary government focus should move from buying and storing food reliefs to making their citizens self-sustaining.

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