Persistent drought in Kenya has meant that schools are valuable centres not only for learning, but for finding adequate nutrition. The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP), has taken on the responsibility of feeding more than a million Kenyan school children.
WFP worker Rose Ogola revealed that the extent of the food crisis is so severe that children do not always eat the portion of food they are allotted for lunch, reports the BBC; “They hide some of it away and take it home to share with their families.”
Drought in Kenya has led to increases in local food prices – especially as the supply of staple crops such as maize dwindle. The price of maize has increased twofold in the past year, while the harvest has fallen 28%. Cattle are dying with great frequency, and those that remain are so thin and starved that they cannot be sold at a high price. Previously, cattle would have been a very good family investment, for they could provide both meat and milk, or could be sold to give the family additional income. But now, with food and water scarce, they are difficult to maintain and even harder to sell for worthwhile price.
Difficult to watch, are the lush crops that blossom in the field of commercial export farms, even though the number of Kenyans dependent upon food aid has skyrocketed from 2.5 million to 3.8 million. Even more worrisome, is that the Red Cross in Kenya speculates that more than double this amount – about 10 million Kenyans – could face starvation by February.
Of course, the ever-present vestiges of the global economic downturn have played a part in the food security crisis; the amount of remittances (money sent from foreign workers in developed countries back to go their families living in the Global South) has fallen greatly.
The WFP is scheduled to increase its food assistance in Kenya to $230 million over the next six months. The help cannot come quickly enough, as families have been forced to reduce the number of meals eaten per day, eating cheaper and unhealthy foods, and migrating to where there are more opportunities and a more accessible food supply.
The extreme malnutrition rate among children under five years old is now at 20%.