Summary
- FAO admits that it is difficult to monitor food prices in Kenya as markets have become more fragmented and volatile.
- In the case of key staple commodities, prices were high before the pandemic as cost of food increased 11.85 percent in March of 2020 over the same month in the previous year.
- However, prices have not shown significant increases due to Covid-19 but panic buying and hoarding by traders, have spiked possible disruptions along the food value chain.
Fear of Covid-19 pandemic
has increased the rate of food poverty in rural Kenya, where most
residents have already suffered from one or more natural hazards,
including desert locust outbreak, too much and sometimes untimely rains
and lately floods.
These factors, in addition to
structural problems of land degradation, declining farm size and climate
change have reduced their productivity and increased vulnerability to
food insecurity, a fresh United Nation’s policy brief indicates, even as
it recommends drastic measures to cushion against food and nutritional
challenges.
The UN-Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) policy brief released last month indicates that food poverty -the
inability to afford or to have access to food for a healthy diet- in
rural areas is estimated at 35.9 percent, compared to 28.9 percent in
peri-urban and 24.4 percent in core urban areas.
The
report also shows that rates of rural food poverty are quite high
mostly in arid and semi-arid (ASAL) counties, including Turkana (66.1
percent) followed by Mandera (61.9 percent), Samburu (60.1 percent),
Busia (59.5 percent), West Pokot (57.3 percent), Marsabit (55.6 percent)
and Tana River (55.4 percent). Only one of the seven (Busia) is a
non-ASAL county.
To mitigate these, the report
recommends mobilisation of significant amount of resources to allow
national and country governments as well as humanitarian organisations
to focus on identifying and providing adequate support to people who
lost their jobs or businesses and those whose income fell below poverty
levels using twin track approach including social protection and
development support to ensure the financial support is adequate to meet
nutritional requirements and basic needs of the family with a focus on
children and mothers.
It pushes for assistance for
people to resume working in informal and small business sector by
adopting safe business practices and intensifying monitoring of food
availability and prices in major regional/ county markets on a regular
basis for early detection of problems in the value chain and timely
response.
The report urges authorities to finalise and
release the protocols and guidelines to facilitate operations within the
food supply chain, and develop guidelines to support and promote online
marketing that strengthens healthy food production and consumption.
“Support farmers, including those engaged in urban farming, to
become resilient and expand production by monitoring inputs , FAO said.
It also called for “facilitation of supply of inputs, credit, advisory
services to farmers and supporting transportation, distribution and
marketing of food supplies to avert food crises. Intensify financial
support to farmers (small and commercial) affected by Covid-19, desert
locust, flood and other disasters to become resilient and resume
production – rescue plan.”
The
report also recommends promotion and adoption of urban farming
especially among the youths and women and promotion of online marketing
of agricultural products and inputs and further develop and implement a
plan to rescue and revitalise formal and informal businesses.
Many
countries, including Kenya have introduced major emergency economic
stimulus packages to prevent Covid-19 from destroying their economies,
including significant sum of public money and combines monetary and
fiscal measures, prioritising cash injection into the economy, rescuing
vulnerable businesses, and providing support to the unemployed.
“In
a typical Keynesian style economics, increased government expenditure
(often financed through new borrowing) is combined with lower taxes to
stimulate demand and pull the economy out of the crisis or prevent
plunging into recession.”
According to the
Nairobi-based UN body, pastoralists are specifically facing difficulty
selling their livestock because of the slowdown and the restrictions
because farmers and consumers are scared of going to crowded
marketplaces and selling fresh produces has not been easy.”
Also,
the loss of income and challenges of accessing inputs may result in
declining agricultural production for the next season and reduced
investment in agriculture due to fear and anxiety of the Covid-19
pandemic.
Seed vendors as well as fertiliser,
pesticides and tractor service providers have been impacted by the
lockdown. Fishers along the Kenyan coast reported that their seafood
trade to Europe and China has declined by 80 percent.
FAO admits that it is difficult to monitor food prices in Kenya as markets have become more fragmented and volatile.
In
the case of key staple commodities, prices were high before the
pandemic as cost of food increased 11.85 percent in March of 2020 over
the same month in the previous year.
However, prices
have not shown significant increases due to Covid-19 but panic buying
and hoarding by traders, have spiked possible disruptions along the food
value chain.
Assuming that some 50 percent of the
Kenyan population is below 19 years old and some four percent (two
million) are in retirement age, the number of small-scale farmers,
pastoralists and fisher folks that do not participate in formal or
informal employment is estimated at five million (10 percent), FAO said.
Food
and nutrition security in Kenya is also threatened by the changing
rainfall patterns, the invasion of quelea birds, pest and diseases,
among others.
It is among six East African countries
worst affected by desert locust, leaving nearly two million people
facing acute food insecurity.
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