• One in every three Kenyans suffer from chronic food insecurity and poor nutrition.
• Gains have been threatened by extreme poverty, poor governance and climate change.
Image: FILE
Kenya is among countries with serious levels of hunger, the 2019 Global Hunger Report indicates.
The report, released last week, ranked Kenya position 86 out of 117 countries with a serious food crisis. Kelvin Shingles, the country director of Welt Hunger Hilfe — a German-based non-governmental organisation – said on Friday Kenya is at 25.2 per cent in terms of how bad the crisis is. This is an improvement from 2000 when Kenya was at 40 per cent.
He said one in every three Kenyans suffers from chronic food insecurity and poor nutrition annually.
"This is about 14.5 million people while approximately 29 per cent of the population does not attain the minimum dietary requirements to sustain a healthy and productive life. It, therefore, must be our collective aim to eliminate hunger by 2030. Renewed efforts are required in the struggle against hunger," Shingles said.
He spoke during the launch of the Global Hunger Index report in Nairobi. Shingles said though there has been a slight improvement in the number of hungry people in Kenya, the food crisis remains a significant challenge. He said the gains have been threatened by extreme poverty, poor governance and climate change.
"Even though Kenya has made strides in alleviating hunger in the last decade, the level of hunger is still grave at position 17 out of 43 countries in the category of nation-states with serious hunger levels in the world. The report shows that hard-won gains are being threatened by extreme poverty, poor governance and climate change," Shingles said.
Kenya is classified as a food-deficit country by the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis. According to the Cost of Hunger in Africa report for Kenya released in November last year, the country lost Sh373.9 billion equivalent to 6.9 per cent of the GDP due to child undernutrition in 2014.
Dr Oscar Magenya, the director of research at the Ministry of Agriculture, said at any one time in Kenya, four million people are food-deficient.
"We have been implementing the agriculture transformation growth strategy that has several flagship projects focusing on agro-processing, addressing household food resilience and increasing farmers’ incomes. As we implement this, we will increase the number of farmers moving from primary production to agro-processing and increase in the variety and consumer patterns in the country," he said.
Edited by A. Ndung'u