Thirst and hunger in the midst of plenty

Shame could not be the right word to describe the loss of Kenya's freshwater streams to lakes and the sea as some citizens die of thirst and miss a meal for lack of nature’s gift.

Laxity and insensitivity could also describe the hopelessness of the situation in which this agricultural and climatically blessed country finds itself today. Kenya relies on rain to grow food.

How come policymakers have not prioritised feeding the population when it has, at its disposal, what it takes to make the country food secure? Endowed with many rivers and streams, Kenya should be the last country on earth to go without food because of water scarcity.

Secondly, and more importantly, the housing of the permanent secretariat of the UN specialised agencies, the United Nations Environment Programme and Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), places the country in an enviable position to access the expertise on environmental conservation, protection and climate change mitigation measures. One such is the prudent use of water sources.

Ironically, Egypt is a farming success story yet most of it is a desert. From irrigated crop fields, the country grows enough and exports surplus food to famine-stricken countries. Kenya is one of the sources of the River Nile from which Egypt draws its water and silt in the Aswan Dam to irrigate farms throughout the year.

Nonfood crops are often grown on large-scale farms at the expense of grain. As the country endures hunger pangs as a result of drought, farmers in the Lake Naivasha region, for instance, prefer flower growing to food crops.

In the scenario, the worst hit are arid and semi-arid residents who are condemned to destitution in the face of plenty in the national breadbasket where maize staple rot in farm fields and stores partly because the prices offered are unacceptable.

Notwithstanding the foregoing observations, the real cost of underutilised freshwater sources and misplaced priorities in our largely agricultural nation, are yet to be quantified. One little known fact is that scarcity or lack of water accounts for food insecurity and famine that have relegated the country to a shameless importer of famine relief in the event of rain failure.

Nearly 60 years after Independence, feeding the population seems not to be a priority of successive governments who seem averse to the biblical verse that exhorts us to “love thy neighbour as yourself”.

Hunger in the midst of plenty is a shame the country cannot bear, Siaya Governor Cornel Rasanga remarked as he toured one of the permanent streams in the county whose water wreaks havoc on the Budalangi' plains on its way to Lake Victoria.

County government leaders have to think outside the box for the benefit of mankind. Water is a precious commodity and above all, a blessing to human. We should not allow it to go to waste and mourn its scarcity when the skies fail to open.

Freelance Journalist. [email protected]