Effects of Climate Change on Food Security in Kenya, Essay Example

Executive summary

The issue of food security in Kenya is widespread. It affects people living in urban, rural, high potential, arid, and semi-arid areas. This issue can be linked to the complex interaction between decreased farm productivity, poverty, climate change. The link between climate change and food security in Kenya is undeniable. The variability of climate due to climate change is already evident. Floods, drought, and unprecedented rainfalls have increased, affecting agriculture and food security. The issue is made worse by the high level of poverty, loss of land productivity and population increase. Indeed, it is projected that effect of the climate change on the agriculture resource to drastically increase in the near feature. Therefore, GOK and other relevant authority should act fast to contain the situation.

This paper highlights the impact of climate change and poverty to food security in Kenya. The paper also document the various intervention measure that are available to improve food security The paper recommends strengthening of policies on mitigation against adaptation to climate change to ensure food security. To improve the household productivity, the paper recommends empowering the farming community through diversification of livelihood and commercialization of agriculture

Introduction

According to food and agriculture organization (FAO), food security exist  when all people at all time, have social, physical and economic accesses to nutritious, safe and sufficient food to meet their dietary need and food presence for an active and healthy life. The term describes food availability, the ease access to it and its subsequent utilization. In other words, it is the ability of a region, country, or household in a country to meet target level of consumption year-in year-out (Laura 2011). The ability meet the target may be through, production storage or import and the access to people is through their purchasing power. The various element of food security, that is, supply (availability), demand (access) and utilization of food are affected by farm production and nonfarm factors. These are referred to as food security indicators.

On the other hand, food insecurity refers to a shortage in a region, country, or household in a country to access enough food. It may also refer to persistent of inadequate diet caused by lack of resource to produce or acquire food. Food insecurity is largely due to inadequate investment, climate change, and ineffective policy implementation among other things. It is also linked to high poverty rates that read to increase in number of people that depend on food aid with the arid and semi-arid areas being most affected in Kenya.

Food insecurity in Kenya is either chronic or transitory. Chronic food insecurity refers to continuous inadequacy of a diet that is caused by the inability to acquire food. It affects household that either lacks ability to buy or produce their food. On the other hand, transitory food insecurity is a temporary decline in household ability to acquire enough food. This is the main kind of food insecurity in Kenya. It is because of instability in food production, food supplies, and income in the country(Farming: fake seeds fraud 2015).

Climate change has increased the risk of catastrophic natural disaster all over the world. Developing countries such as Kenya are particularly vulnerable to the catastrophic risk of for three reason. Fist, they depend on natural resource as their source or livelihood, second they have limited resource to adapt to climate change and third, poor planning evident in such country delay the recovery process.

As the effect of climate change continues to be felt, food insecurity in Kenya is getting worse.

Background

Food insecurity in Kenya is widespread. Over half of the country population lack access to adequate food. Only 20% of Kenyan are food secure. With 40% of its population, living below the poverty line and are permanently food insecure (Laura 2011). The other 40% are normally self-sufficient but are venerable during shocks. According to UN, about 10 million Kenyan is at risk of food starvation, out of which two million relaying on relief food at any one time.

Kenya and other horn of Africa countries experienced one of the worst droughts 2011/2012 that greatly undermined food security in the country. United nation estimated that millions of Kenyans in the northeastern province need relief food. The country have a high global hunger index (GHI) – 18.6(KARI-McGill 2014). Although there is growing body of literature of the impact of climate change in Africa, they have not exhaustively studied the relationship between climate change and food security in Kenya. The objective of the paper is to highlight the link between climate change and poverty to Kenya’s food security and propose the various intervention measures available.

Role of poverty in food insecurity

The relationship between food insecurity and poverty in Kenya is undeniable. 40% of Kenyans live below the poverty line, of which 75%  are in rural areas while and 25% in the urban areas. Extreme poverty affects about 2 million Kenyans. The most significant cause of poverty in Kenya is declining agriculture output due to effects of climate change, declining soil fertility, poor farming methods and inaccessibility of farm inputs(Government of Kenya et al 2014).

Climate change and food insecurity

The effect of climate change to food security in Kenya is severe due to several respects. Fist, due to high dependency on rain-fed agriculture. Second, high level of poverty and third, low level of physical capital, as well as infrastructure. Over the past few decades, severe droughts in Kenya have continued to interrupt rainfall pattern. This has resulted to severe consequences such as harvest failure, deteriorating pasture condition, decreased water availability and livestock losses. According to a study carried out by united nation,  climate variability  has increased the food insecurity in Kenya in the past few decade.  The study also found that food insecurity is responsive to climate change and its variable (rainfall and temperature). Different food crops respond differently to climate change. Climate change is likely to have the largest effect on maize, rice, and wheat, which are the main staple food in Kenya(FAO 2014).  Another study predicted modest increase in food insecurity of other doughty resistant crops such as millet, cassava sorghum and other fast growing crops such as beans(Government of Kenya et al 2014)..

There is no doubt that climate change has adversely affected the food security in Kenya. The situation is likely to deteriorate if no intervention measures are put in place. Therefore, there is a need for GOK and other relevant institution to safeguard  the agriculture sector against the adverse effect of climate change,  through relevant policies and other initiatives. Mitigation against global warming takes two forms that that is a reduction of emission of greenhouse gas and increase in capacity of CO2 sink  mainly through reforestation. In addition, the commission for sustainable agriculture and climate change reviewed scientific evidence and identified ways of achieving food security that are applicable to Kenya’s case. It recommends that food system should be altered to meet human needs, in the long run. This call for interventions at local, national and global level to transform the current food production, distribution, and consumption.  The commission recommended for innovation and investment to empower the vulnerable population, to be embraced.

Conclusion

The link between climate change, poverty, and food insecurity in Kenya is undeniable. The most significant cause of poverty in Kenya is declining agriculture output due to effects of climate change, declining soil fertility, poor farming methods and inaccessibility of farm inputs.   The effect of climate change to food security in Kenya is severe due to several respects. First, due to high dependency on rain-fed agriculture. Second, high level of poverty and third, low level of physical capital, as well as infrastructure.  This study found that Food insecurity is responsive to climate availability and change.  Different food crops respond differently to change in climate. Although local farmers have felt the effect of climate change they lack full information of various adaptation options that are available to them.  For this reason, any food initiative in the country should make deliberate attempt to increase agriculture productivity, raise the household income in an attempt to reduce the poverty level. This can be done through empowering the local communities, commercializing agriculture,  encouraging local production, in addition, it should strengthen the  policies on mitigation against adaptation to climate change to ensure food security.  The following are the recommendations to achieve the goal of food security in Kenya.

Responses

While continued decline in food production and market failure contribute to the individual household vulnerability to effect of climate change,   failure to respond can lead to devastating situation such as famine. Fortunately, several appropriate action have been taken to address the current food crisis in Kenya. For instance  Kenya through east Africa daily development project (EADDP),  have improved household income through increased market access and  daily product production efficiency. This was due to realization that poverty among the smallholder daily produces result, in part, from poor access to markets and degradation of grassland. More efficient production and more opportunities to market their produce can boost the resilience of small-scale farmers and create sustainable livelihood while helping to meet growing demand of food.  EADDP project is funded by bill gate foundation, it enhances service and training to boost incomes for millions of small holders farmers in east Africa.  The project  has increased access to market and reduced post harvest loss. In addition, the project offers training to small holders in business and production such as animal nutrition practice and improved breeding technologies.  Other  response by  Kenya government include,  policies intervention such as subsidization of farm inputs, improvement of rural infrastructure, provision of fund to purchase livestock from drought stricken areas.

However while such intervention measure are important further massive multi sectarial responses is critical to address the issue.

Recommendations

The following are the recommendations to achieve the goal of food security in Kenya.

GOK should formulate policies to safeguard agriculture against the adverse effect of climate change in order to alleviate food security in Kenya.

GOK and other relevant bodies should promote agriculture as a tool of poverty reduction through commercialization. Commercialization of the agriculture sector can be achieved through Public and private collaborations. In addition, to fully commercialize agriculture, capacity is key. Therefore, the county education system should be adjusted to ensure it produces enough agribusiness personnel. The advantage of commercializing agriculture is that, it will increase the availability of food as well as increase the household income and create employment.

To GOK   and other relevant institution should promote modern farming methods and various climate change adaption measures such as greenhouse farming, and irrigation to reduce the impact of the climate change.

GOK should promote Diversification of livelihood to empower households by giving them a number of option to draw from making them more food and income secure. Such intervention may include improved small scale livestock production, and beekeeping

The food policy initiative should prioritize affordability and efficiency to deliver long-term objective of attainment of food security in Kenya.

Empower individual household to contribute individually and collectively toward food security and shunning dependency on relief food. The GOK should have a deliberate annual budget investment program for food availability and access to the market with a commitment for result.

Local community should be encouraged to embrace the traditional high valued food such as sweet potatoes; sorghum, millet and cassava to enhance food security.

The government should encourage the consumption of other food type and reduce the over-reliance on maize – that is highly venerable to global warming- over other staple food.

GOK should promote local food production and reduce dependency on the relief food by enacting policy to regulate imports of foodstuff through tax and other non-tax barriers.

Mitigation intervention to respond to global warming should be pursued. Such intervention includes agroforestry, land and water management. The relevant institution should promote Reforestation program to reduce emission of greenhouse gas.

Contouring farming and terracing to improve on soil moisture retention and reduce erosion, and thus productivity should be promoted.

The government of Kenya and other relevant institution should make deliberate attempt to harvest and storing water especially in arid and other semi-arid regions.

References

European Commission 2014, Analysis of the food security situation in Kenya at the end of the 2013-2014 short rains season. Available from < http://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/analysis-food-security-situation-kenya-end-2013-2014-short-rains-season>. [1 May 2014].

FAO 2014, The elimination of food insecurity in the Horn of Africa – Final report. Available from <http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x8406e/X8406e08.htm [4 Nov 2014].

Farming: fake seeds fraud/ livestock expo/ long rains are delayed. Available from <http://www.coastweek.com/3811-Farming-fake-seeds-fraud-regional-livestock-expo-long-rains-are-delayed.htm> [5 March 2015].

Government of Kenya, Famine Early Warning System Network, World Food Programme2014, Kenya Food Security Outlook Update August 2014. Available from < http://reliefweb.int/report/kenya/kenya-food-security-outlook-update-august-2014>. [26 August 2014].

KARI-McGill 2014, KARI-McGill food security project: Innovations for resilient farming in Kenya. Available from <http://www.kari.org/karimcgill/intro> [1 August 2014].

Laura, W H 2011, Combating food insecurity in Northern Kenya. Available from http://www.frontlinesms.com/2011/08/04/combating-food-insecurity-in-northern-kenya/.[4 August 2011].