Food shortage looms as La Nina returns to stunt growth

A prolonged dry weather forecast for the rest of the year is dashing the hopes of economic planners to steer the economy back to the level of growth needed to tackle youth unemployment and alleviate poverty.

Weathermen on Tuesday confirmed that la Nina — a prolonged dry spell — will start next month in most parts of the country with negative impact on agriculture and electricity generation.

“While we may have enough food and water reserves from the recent El Nino rains to sustain the country up to the end of this year, the la Nina condition could extend to the March-May long rains,” said Dr Joseph Mukabana, the Kenya Meteorological Department director.

Tuesday's forecast is in line with the UN-affiliated World Meteorological Organisation outlook in July that predicted la Nina would hit Eastern Africa in the last quarter of this year.

The October-December season forecast released yesterday indicates that only Nyanza and Western provinces will experience short rains.

The country’s food basket — Rift Valley and Central provinces — and parts of Nairobi province face moderate rains.

To the agricultural sector, disappointing rains in the last quarter means the country may have to resort to food imports to cover for the 15 per cent of annual production that usually come from the short season.

“This is the time to boost the levels of national food reserves to avert widespread hunger in the months to come,” said Dr Mukabana.

Prices rising

Stocking food reserves from imports at a time that grain prices are rising in the international market due to supply constraints from countries like Russia and Canada is likely to increase inflationary pressures in the economy

More poignantly, the forecast indicates that Coast, Eastern and North Eastern province will remain dry for the next three months, raising fears of increased conflict over the scarce resources.

A dryer southern and eastern part of the country would affect the catchment areas for rivers like Tana and Athi which sustain major hydroelectric power generation in the Seven Folks Scheme, ushering in more intense electricity supply disruptions that have stunted the manufacturing sector in the past.

“This is the wrong time to think of electricity supply disruption because everyone is expanding their business to take advantage of opening regional markets,” a Nairobi based manufacturer who requested not to be named said.

Increased thermal component of the national power mix, he said, would cost local products competitiveness in the regional market unless the government doles out some subsidies.

Agriculture and manufacturing support a quarter of the country’s GDP and at least 10 per cent respectively.

More incentives

In a Press release issued on Monday, the National Social Economic Council (NESC), a policy think tank that advises the government on Vision 2030, said more incentives were needed to support the growth in the labour intensive manufacturing sector and to provide employment to more Kenyans.

The dry weather in the last quarter means the economy which recorded modest growth figures first quarter of the year may not achieve the overall 5.2 per cent that NESC has set for this year.

“For Kenya to grow at levels of five per cent or more, there is need for good weather, food availability and general growth in economies of other east African countries,” Mr Job Kihumba, Executive Director at the Standard Investment Bank said.

Growing optimism and good rains experienced in the first half of the year had given economic planners the confidence to revise the previous growth target of 4.5 per cent upwards with target of double digit figure being set for 2012.

A prolonged drought that extended into the first half of last year pushed down the country’s growth to 2.6 per cent last year – a snail pace compared to the robust 7.2 per cent of 2007 before the droughts started

On Tuesday, weathermen warned that the la nina conditions could force the government into diverting resources from productive segments to support emergencies such as providing relief food to distressed communities.