Poor Rainfall, Crop Failure Has Kenya On Verge Of National Disaster – UN
Several years of poor rainfall, leading to severe crop failure, has brought Kenya to the brink of declaring a national
disaster, the United Nations said today.
Food production this year in five of the country’s seven provinces will be about 40 per cent of what is needed, while
drought-like conditions in pastoral areas have already put close to 1 million people in severe food insecurity,
according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In the meantime, some 2.3 million persons will require a total of 136,000 tons of food for the next six months – but
that number could increase to 3.3 million if rain continues to be scarce, OCHA warned.
Aggravating the situation are findings that government reserves of grain, as well as stocks from the UN World Food
Programme WFP) and the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF), are being afflicted by a grain mold called afflatoxin, which requires
complete destruction of the stocks.
UN relief agencies will soon be appealing for international aid on behalf of the Kenyan Government. WFP plans to ask for
food aid within the next few days, and UNICEF is responding to concerns over health, nutrition, water, sanitation and
education. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization FAO) is consolidating requests for agricultural and livestock
assistance.