Millions in Kenya are undernourished, says FAO report

Wananchi queue to open CDS accounts ahead of Safaricom IPO in 2008. FILE 

Safaricom CEO, Bob Collymore (left), Airtel's Shivan Bhargava and Telkom Kenya's Mickael Ghossein (right). Safaricom and Airtel CEO’s have presented themselves to the police for questioning October 8, 2013 while Telkom Kenya's was grilled on Monday night. Photos/FILE 

By Sandra Chao

About 11 million people in Kenya are undernourished, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates, with three in every four Kenyans having faced hunger in the
last three years.

The FAO 2013 state of food insecurity report says the situation has worsenend in Kenya from 1992 when only 8.4 million Kenyans were affected. But the number went down as a proportion of the general population.

While there have been considerable efforts to reduce the number of hungry people, the report notes that the progress is not sufficient for Kenya to attain the millennium development goal of halving this number by 2015.

Simon Muhindi, a food analyst with FAO Kenya, noted that while food production had increased in parts of the country, many people still did not have access to it.

“Poverty and infrastructure play a crucial role in ensuring food security. What is the actual reach of the food being produced and how many people can actually afford to buy it?” he posed

He called for the promotion of more nutritional foods to reduceover-reliance on starches.

“Accessibility, utilisation, affordability and nutritional value are things that should be tackled to ensure every child born in Kenya is food secure. This can be done by implementing policies and creating an enabling socio-economic environment,” he added.

According to the report, which was also written by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP), one in eight people globally are estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger.

And 842 million people, 26 million fewer than in 2012, cannot conduct an active life because they lack food. Sub-Saharan Africa had the highest prevalence of undernourishment.

The region’s prevalence of undernourishment rates declined from 32.7 per cent between 1990 and 1992 to 24.8 per cent in the last three years.

Eastern Africa and the Sahel region had the highest incidence of people with stunted growth and of being underweight. This was attributed to higher prices with consumer shifting to cheaper, less-nutritious foods when prices are raised.

The report urges countries to implement policies aimed at enhancing agricultural productivity and increasing food availability.