Almost 4 million Kenyans on food aid as drought deepens

[Peikko 1,575]

Link

Almost 4 million Kenyans on food aid as drought deepens

A worker tries to lift up a weak cow from among the carcasses at the Kenya Meat Commission. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

The devastating drought sweeping across Kenya is causing widespread hunger, thirst and, in the case of cattle, death. Pictures of hundreds of cow carcasses being tipped into a mass grave near Nairobi highlight the scale of the natural disaster – and the clumsy or even negligent efforts of the government to deal with it.

Aware that the drought was likely to cause pastoralists to lose significant parts of their herds, the government announced a 500m shilling (£4.1m) plan last month to buy weak animals from farmers for 8,000 shillings (£65) each. The plan provided for the animals to be transported by truck to the Kenya meat commission depot in Athi River, a town near Nairobi, where they would be held, fed, and slaughtered, with the meat sold to recoup costs.

But many of the trucks transporting the cows hundreds of miles from as far away as north-eastern province, had insufficient water and food on board, causing large numbers of animals to die along the way. Of those that arrived alive, many soon perished owing to a lack of pasture in the holding bay.

The botched operation has caused anger and embarrassment among MPs, especially given that the government has been asking donors for urgent financial help in feeding the nearly 10 million Kenyans who are food insecure.

"They should have slaughtered the animals at the point of origin, not money to bring them to Athi River to be buried," said John Muthotho, chairman of the parliamentary committee on agriculture, which has accused the meat commission and the livestock ministry of incompetence.

Drought has long been a theme in Kenya, and east Africa more broadly, though the extreme dry spells appear to be hitting with more frequency. Over the past decade pastoralists have become used to marching vast distances in search of grazing, ending up in once-unlikely areas.

In Nairobi, the sight of Masai herders grazing their cows in upmarket suburbs or blocking the highway as their cattle amble across no longer raises eyebrows. In the Masai Mara game reserve tourists enter the park each day to see the wild animals roam the vast plains but at night it is the herders, who are being allowed to drive in thousands of cattle to graze.

The crisis is being exacerbated by high food prices, caused by poor harvests but also poor government planning that has left a large hole in the grain reserves. During the recent holidays many schools that serve lunches during term time stayed open simply so the pupils could be assured of eating one meal a day.

There is also a serious water shortage, with some neighbourhoods in Nairobi going without for weeks at a time. One reason is drought, but the destruction of water catchment areas – in some cases with the encouragement of the authorities – has not helped. With the electricity supply largely dependent of hydropower, low dam levels have also led to widespread power rationing.

[Heracles 417]

Okay their population is reasonable so they need aid.

If you had posted Nigeria, #### that for a joke with their 159 million.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Go to Zimbabwe, they have a surplus of food. Oh wait, they kicked out their white farmers are now starving. My bad.

http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the_last_...eir_land_today/

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

Cleo you best get on over there! Or is it just easier to post someone elses agony? Your love for them is so AWESOME!

Edited September 18, 2009 by ={Rogue}=

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

No defense of the loved ones MZ foggy?

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

We gave millions didnt we? Make a difference Cleo! Quit postin and get to puttin out! Here I will help

Edited September 18, 2009 by ={Rogue}=

[Dakine 26]

It's been going on for 1000s of years. Lots of rain and food the people reproduce like rabbits.

Drought comes along and knocks down the population a bit. Nothing anyone can do about it.

VERY natural event.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

FVCKIN VACANT! As Usual! Nuthin worse than postin pitty without action! So shameful! Puffyheart meaningless #######! Haole not talkin to you, am talkin to th OP!

Edited September 18, 2009 by ={Rogue}=

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Terrible

[almaty 19]

very sad..and terrible....kenya, when i was younger was a progressive country, who aided other african countries

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Well after the hijack of their presidential election last year, I really hope that they don't turn into another Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe used to be one of the most modern african countries, run into the ground by Mugabe's corrupt and inept leadership.

[Chica Yeyé 41]

Human tragedy.

[HAL 9000 96]

Drought in Africa. Cold summers in America. Yep, GW is a myth...

[alienlovechild 75]

Drought in Africa. Cold summers in America. Yep, GW is a myth...

You might like this one. Plenty of droughts before GW theory but the article sez GW ain't helping the situation.

"For at least 3,000 years, a drumbeat of potent droughts, far longer and more severe than any experienced recently, have seared a belt of sub-Saharan Africa that is now home to tens of millions of the world’s poorest people, climate researchers report in a new study.

The last such drought, persisting more than three centuries, ended around 1750, the research team writes in the April 17 issue of the journal Science.

The scientists warned that more such mega-droughts are inevitable, although there is no way to predict when the next one could unfold.

That sobering prediction emerged from the first study of year-by-year climate conditions in the region over the millenniums, based on layered mud and dead trees in a crater lake in Ghana. Although the evidence was drawn from a single water body, Lake Bosumtwi, the researchers said there was evidence that the drought patterns etched in the lake bed extended across a broad swath of West Africa.

The lead authors of the report, Timothy M. Shanahan of the University of Texas at Austin and Jonathan T. Overpeck of the University of Arizona, warned that global warming resulting from human-generated greenhouse gases was likely to exacerbate those droughts and that there was an urgent need to bolster the resilience of African countries in harm’s way.

Kevin Watkins, director of the office of Human Development Reports of the United Nations described the study as “a “critical report.”

“Many of the 390 million people in Africa living on less than $1.25 a day are smallholder farmers that depend on two things: rain and land,” he said. “Even small climate blips such as a delay in rains, a modest shortening of the drought cycle, can have catastrophic effects.”

Given the sub-Saharan region’s persistent vulnerability, Mr. Watkins added, the new findings and the prospect of further global warming could be “early warning signs for an unprecedented and catastrophic reversal in human development.”

The study said that some of the past major droughts appeared to be linked to a distinctive pattern of increases and reductions in surface temperatures of the Atlantic Ocean, known as the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation.

Typically over the last 3,000 years, a severe drought developed every 30 to 65 years, the researchers said. But several centuries-long droughts in the climate record, the most recent persisting from 1400 to around 1750, are harder to explain, they said.

While that extraordinary drought occurred during a cool spell in the Northern Hemisphere called the “little ice age,” other sustained extreme droughts appear to have hit West Africa at points when the world was relatively warm over all, they reported.

To gather the data, the research team extracted cylinders of mud from the lake bed. The bottom of the circular lake, formed when a crater was blasted into the region one million years ago, has unusually fine layers of mud. Each layer represents a year’s accumulation, yielding a trove of chemical and physical clues to past temperatures and other conditions.

The team also studied wood samples from ancient dead trees that still poke from the lake’s surface, in areas that were exposed and forested during dry spells several centuries ago but are now under 45 to 60 feet of water.

Recent climate data from the lake analysis were compared with weather records from across the region, providing confidence that the lake record was a reasonable reflection of conditions elsewhere, according to the paper.

In interviews, a range of independent experts on climate and African poverty said that the study underlined that it was important for developed countries to curb greenhouse gases to keep climate shifts around the globe in as manageable a range as possible.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/17/science/.../17drought.html

[HAL 9000 96]

Similar to what I stated in another thread-

If you look local, you see local.