KENYA: Drought hits food security and power supply

Record ID: 360727

  • Title: KENYA: Drought hits food security and power supply
  • Date: 3rd September 2009
  • Summary: VIEW OF THREE BOYS WALKING PAST CARCASSES
  • Embargoed: 18th September 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Kenya
  • Country: Kenya
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Nature / Environment
  • Reuters ID: LVA4193STIA3N7FD29R5EZTCO76H
  • Story Text: A devastating drought is ravaging the livelihoods of millions of people in Kenya after four consecutive failed rainy seasons.
    In homesteads across the east African country's Rift Valley region, cattle are the economic lifeblood of thousands of communities, but now the animals are dropping where they stand, their parched bodies stinking in the red dust.
    Livestock are being devastated and people are being left with no means of paying school fees or buying food.
    "I can not remember the last time it rained here, this drought has killed almost all our cattle. I used to have a heard of more than 1,000, now I only have 100," said Paul Mokoi, a Maasai herdsman.
    Kenya as a whole is suffering its worst drought in years.
    As a result Kenya recently closed a 14 megawatts power generating unit at its Masinga Dam due to depleted water levels.
    The country's electricity generating company, KenGen, is trying to free up water for other units and reduce the impact of less water on the country's power grid at a time when power rationing is increasing the cost of doing business in east Africa's biggest economy.
    "The shutting down of Masinga first of all has meant that the national grid can not get 40 megawatts, what we were generating at Masinga itself. It also meant that even the other power stations downstream of Masinga, we had to reduce the generation from there because the inflows were not enough," said Joel Ng'ang'a, an operations manager at Masinga.
    The Kenya Meteorological Department says this year's drought is the worst since 1996.
    White Rhinos in one of Kenya's major national parks in Nakuru, about 150 kilometres from the capital Nairobi, are also at risk from the drought. Kenya's Wildlife Service recently relocated 10 white rhinos to the capital where the effects of drought are less severe for the rare rhino species.
    Environmentalists blame the big dry on factors from global warming to excessive irrigation and the destruction of Kenya's forests.
    Environmentalist and nobel laureate Wangari Maathai said the current situation is evidence of the long term harsh effects of climate change, something Africa is not prepared for.
    "This is an excellent time for Kenya maybe, to realize and for the rest of Africa to learn what we are talking about when we say that climate change is going to hit Africa very seriously. And it is partly because Africa is completely unprepared for what is coming," said Maathai.
    Studies show poorer nations bear more than nine-tenths of the human and economic burden of climate change even though they contribute less than one percent of the carbon dioxide emissions that scientists say are threatening the planet.
    However, Maathai said local efforts to protect the environment in the past could have made a difference today.
    "For more than three decades we have been saying it is important to protect our forests, to protect our rivers, to protect our lands so that we stop soil erosion and to protect our wetlands and somehow all of them have come and converged during these last two, now going on to three years and everybody and everything that is living in this country is feeling it," said Maathai.
    Short rains are expected in a month with experts warning of excess rain. They believe the drought-affected areas are likely to be hit by flash floods and heavy erosion as there is little vegetation left to hold the soil together.
    The government declared a state of emergency, saying 10 million people may face hunger and starvation after a poor harvest, crop failure, a lack of rain and rising food prices.
    People in areas affected by drought have abandoned their farms and are looking at new ways of earning income.
    In Isiolo about 350 kilometres from Nairobi, women break stones from quarries. They are traditionally farmers but now sell stone chips to builders.
    "Since 2002 we have not been able to harvest anything substantial, we can not work in anybody's farm because nothing grows and that is why we decided to come work here in the quarry so that we can be able to buy food," said Beatrice Muthoni, a resident of Isiolo.
    The U.N.'s World Food Programme (WFP) appealed for more than $230 million U.S. dollars to provide emergency food aid over the next six months for 3.8 million Kenyans affected by deepening drought and high food prices.
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