From: Faulu Suba
I pray for my brothers and sisters that are afflicted by hunger and thank those who are making contributions to help buy food for them.
It was however alarming that we did not realize that in some parts of the country, there is a glut of non-staple foods like bananas, potatoes and cabbages. This excess is reportedly rotten and going to waste instead of being channeled to needy areas. This is a failure of markets, the GoK and all of us. One consequence of this failure is a weakened farming(food producing) system which might make farmers to produce less next season.
In addition to undermined farming, other problems that need to be addressed are:
1)Rigid diets to an extent that people sleep angry yet alternative foods are available. Who said hunger can only be alleviated by providing maize and beans? Can’t ‘omena’ and cassava also relieve hunger?
2)A GoK which is starved of functional FOOD SECURITY POLICY. The policy has not addressed the access gaps in food availability. The ministers are busy scheming on how to ct down others to size in 2012 elections(or busy trying to devise tricks to postpone elections to 2013);
3) A not so vibrant agri/food business sectors. We do not have investment that adequately bridge the gaps between food production and food markets. Food markets are therefore starved.
4) Poor stewardship of resources at our disposal(water, land, finances, knowledge e.g. meteorological early warnings)
Or is it just because we live in the end times????????
yap faulu.we have great and massive tracks of fertile lands but what have we really done with it.great rivers enough for irrigation to avoid dependancy on rains but if thats not enough what about the great volumes of water we leave for wastage only to cry at the end due to floods isnt that water enough for farming in dry seasons?i just dont want to remember of the large volumes of milk that had to be poured as waste some years back and reason being overproduction than our market can contain and large tonnes of peas, carrots,cabbages,potatoes to mention but a few that has to be given to the donkeys and cattle to consume in kinagop every year due to exessive production and poor influstructure to ferry them to the market only to hear kenyan for kenyans innitiative latter on.something is wrong somewhere!!….!!!
mike it is true we have plenty of land,water reservoirs and productive manpower, but all these are not harnessed to improve the lives of very many Kenyans that struggle to make ends meet, through thin and thick .In Turkana for instance ,has had a lot of wasted resources in the name of relief aid which would have otherwise been used to create more sustainable and long time remedies to drought, famine,disease and the like. plenty of water run-off goes down stream that could irrigate volumes of land-wasteland. but am optimistic that with the discovery of a water reservoir in Lotikipi, the government will do something good this time round.
i think we should all work together in unity to do away with hunger and starvation in this productive land of ours Kenya.