The harvest has failed

Millions of families in Kenya are facing starvation and urgently need food relief and water aid, and help to address long-term food security issues. Mothers’ Union’s 400,000-strong membership across rural Kenya is at the coalface of this huge need, working to do all they can for their neighbours and communities.

A national crisis was flagged up in January by the Church World Service. 2008’s rainy season had failed to materialize, and the people had eaten all the food they had by January, many were going hungry and all hopes were pinned on 2009’s rains. But the rains failed again in April, and the land has stayed dry. The harvest couldn’t grow and thousands of families, who were already desperate and going hungry daily, suddenly found themselves facing long-term hunger – which, if unalleviated, can only lead to malnutrition and its related diseases and collapse, and eventually starvation.

Mothers’ Union Kenya began receiving calls for help from sixteen dioceses across Kenya. An estimated 10 million people are now living with serious food shortage.  In one of the biggest Relief Fund outlays ever sent by Mothers’ Union, over £74,000 has already been sent.

But Salome Leipa, Mothers’ Union Provincial Coordinator for Kenya, has urgent appeals for over £190,000 to fulfil, and numbers leaving their land and travelling to find help are growing. She writes that the Government of Kenya have been trying to provide relief food, but they do not have nearly enough. Other agencies are spending time interviewing people to find out what the needs are, but on the ground relief is totally inadequate.

Bondo Diocese wrote to Mothers’ Union, “The drought has resulted in severe famine and diseases of which many people have lost lives. People have been preparing their farms for the long rains season and have planted at least three times awaiting for rains to come, but in vain.”

Not only does this leave people without food, but crop seed has also been wasted, and livestock, which provide milk and meat, are dying or already gone.

Mothers’ Union Kenya have requested urgent, huge amounts of aid to help as many families as possible in sixteen of the most devastated areas across Kenya.  Alongside food-aid, communities need help with new seed for planting.  In particular they need crops which will grow quickly to harvest so that people can feed themselves again.

As the effects of climate change will increase, rather than diminish, the urgent need across the region, in both Kenya and other countries similarly affected such as Tanzania and Uganda, is to address the issues of water and food security for communities. As famine bites and food prices soar, the fluctuation of food prices means that those most in need cannot afford basic foodstuffs, and governments are priced out of providing food relief to their own people.

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