The prevalence of severe food insecurity in Kenya doubled in a span of six years, highlighting the challenges Kenyans are going through in trying to put a meal on the table.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reveal that the rate of food insecurity in the country jumped from 15 percent between 2014-16 to 28 percent between 2020-22.
The 13-percentage point increase pushed Kenya’s level of food insecurity to the second highest in the region after South Sudan’s which stood at 63.2 percent.
According to the body, which is an arm of the United Nations, 14.8 million Kenyans suffered from severe food insecurity at the end of last year as a result of the erratic weather patterns and aftershocks of the pandemic.
“The uptick of hunger in 2022 stemmed from increasing inflation, followed by the upsurge in international commodity prices as well as domestic challenges such as persistently high levels of unemployment and vulnerability to shocks,” said the body in the report
Ethiopia, the region’s most populous country had 21.1 percent or 25.3 million of its population suffering from severe food insecurity, lower than Uganda and Tanzania.
Uganda had the second lowest prevalence rate of 24.9 percent while Tanzania’s stood at 26.3 percent, South Sudan had close to two-thirds of its population (63.2 percent) suffering from severe food insecurity.
The high incidence of acute food insecurity in the country beats the continental average which was recorded at 23.4 percent and the global average that stood at 11.3 percent.
The increase in hunger also resulted from food inflation and increasing food import bills as well as extreme climate events.
Kenya witnessed a locust invasion before and during the pandemic that was compounded by a prolonged drought last year that went down as the worst in 40 years.
The resultant effect of the two and geopolitical tensions was a spike in the cost of food by 15.78 percent in October compared to the same month of the previous year last year. This ultimately pushed the cost of living to the highest in over five years.
