By Peter Theuri
Head of Digital Comms., ISAAA AfriCenter
On the afternoon of March 6, days after the Kenya Meteorological Department had sent a circular warning Kenyans of potential flash floods, Nairobi, the capital city, was hit with the worst torrent in recent history, killing 23 overnight.
As that was happening, millions of pastoralists and their livestock in the north of Kenya were facing a debilitating drought. This was not a new occurrence.
Kenya, a tropical country, has its cold highlands, wet lowlands, dry expanses, and the relatively humid coastal strip, a land as diverse as its ethnic groups. In instances, one corner will be swimming in plenty, even shedding excesses, while another is starving. In the face of climate change, the situation has worsened.
In 2024, while highlighting the country’s declining dollar reserves, President William Ruto said that the country was spending over half a trillion shillings ($3.9 trillion) in food importation. As the population nears 60 million, the country is increasingly struggling to feed its citizens.
Maize, the most common crop grown across the country alongside beans, green grams and cowpeas, perennially falls short of the national needs, especially due to tough competition between humans and animals. While the country produces about 40 million bags of maize each year (on average for the last five years), the consumption exceeds 48 million bags.
Kenya National Bureau of Statistics’ (KNBS) National Agriculture Production Report for 2023 showed a stagnant production of wheat for the five years to the date of the report’s release, with the acreage under cultivation of the cereal reducing each year.
In drought, as in excess rainfall, thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Kenyans are left in dire need of food. Mid-February, The Red Cross reported that the Government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had delivered 30,000 kilograms of dates to support drought-affected families. A fortnight later, its leading divers were searching for bodies in surging waters in Nairobi as aid started going the direction of families displaced by floods.
Alongside other disastrous outcomes of the flooding, such as deaths, diseases and displacement, is an ironic water shortage that could be experienced as soon as the clouds run dry. Over two thirds of the country receive less than 500mm of rainfall per year and 79% has less than 700mm annually, according to The National Water Harvesting and Storage Strategy (NWHSS) (2020 – 2025), yet only 3.9 per cent of the total Kenyan households use rainwater as a source of drinking water, and therefore few care to trap water whenever it rains.
Even fewer have the capacity to trap water that can see them through long periods of lack.
Following flooding in half of the country and the drought in the other half, the government is always in a frantic rush to provide relief food. While this is largely unsustainable over the long-term, it has been the country’s fallback. Many people end up in malnutrition, or dead, as they barely receive sufficient to see them through to the next cycle of fair weather. This disaster occurs with every cycle of weather extremes.
Can Kenya feed its suffering populations in the aftermath of these climate conditions?
The country’s food crops subsector contributes approximately 33% of the total agricultural GDP. This sub-sector is a major occupation of the rural population and accounts for a large share of the total agricultural output, according to the Agriculture and Food Authority.
One of the surest shields against severe food shortage is the openness to safe, healthy, affordable food options available elsewhere in the world. In a rapidly developing world, genetic modification has increasingly provided crops resistant to drought and diseases, higher yielding and with nutritional boost.
Yet ongoing court cases, filed to challenge the government’s August 2022 decision to lift a ten-year ban on importation and commercialization of genetically modified crops, have frustrated their use even as they remain available in global markets, and largely the most viable option amid climate change.
Kenya is still heavily reliant on importation of food it has a capacity to produce, or it already produces. However, erratic rainfall, shrinking farmland, and expensive farm inputs frustrate efforts to ramp up production. Expansive countryside fields, which are being abandoned by a youth surge into urban areas, are mostly in arid and semi-arid regions, where farmers almost predominantly depend on very irregular rainfall which, with every failure, creates irreparable damage among communities.
If Kenya is to feed its population satisfactorily, both affected by floods and drought, it needs to be alive to the fact that in the face of climate change, there is no time to dawdle; adoption of GM crops should be prioritize.
Tested and proven for safety and nutritional benefits over three decades, and able to withstand harsh climates, pests and diseases, GM crops have been widely adopted across the world, insulating masses against hunger.
It is projected that by 2030, 582 million people will be chronically undernourished, more than half of them in Africa. Our continent experiences an average lag of 12 to 15 years in GM crops’ commercialization, compared to 5 to 10 years elsewhere.
In Kenya, according to climate change specialist Vitumbiko Chinoko, for Bt maize, whose commercialization could have occurred in 2019, the delay cost was estimated at USD 67 million (Sh8.6 billion) between 2019 and 2024, with potential gains of USD 218 million (Sh28.1 billion) by 2029.
“Bt cotton, ready by 2015 but released in 2020, lost USD 1.2 million (Sh155 million) and 650 tons in potential production. GM potato, projected for 2028 commercialization, could yield USD 247 million (Sh31.9 billion) in combined farmer and consumer benefits over 30 years, but a five-year delay could erode USD 89 million (Sh11.5 billion) of these gains,” he said.
Alongside hastening adoption, the country should prioritize improving rainwater harvesting, promoting irrigation, and providing storage facilities for the little Kenya’s farmers are able to produce in good times.