We must always be careful with statistics

One of the leading newspapers in the country carried a story on how millions of Kenyans are staring at starvation in case of a lockdown.

At a glance the story seemed convincing but when you looked at the data carefully, the numbers didn’t add up.

The authors acknowledge the credible source of data but omit some key information about the data used in the story.

The truth is that the data was from the 2015/2016 Kenya Integrated Household Budget Survey. No other similar study has ever been done since then yet the authors use it to address current issues.

Strangely, the authors seem to be aware that the data couldn’t support their arguments since they contradict themselves.

In one of the paragraphs, they noted that the number of those staring at starvation “could even be higher considering the latest report has a total population of 45 million, while last year’s census shows there are now 47.6 million Kenyans.”

They argued that millers bought all the maize from the Grain Reserves and that if the government were to go for a total lockdown, there will be no food. This is a fallacious argument.

Millers hold part of the food available in the country. If it gets to a point that government distributes food, it knows where to find it.

The figure of 14 million people they purport to be in food insecurity is not true at all. If they bothered to fact check, even for the worst-case scenario, they would have found lots of data.

ReliefWeb, the largest humanitarian information portal in the world, noted in their August 2019 Kenya Food Security Outlook Update, that food insecurity has significantly worsened since the May mid-season assessment.

At least 2.6 million people in Kenya are currently experiencing crisis or worse outcomes, including some households that are likely in emergency in Turkana, Marsabit, Isiolo, Mandera, Tana River, Garissa, Wajir, and Baringo counties.

This represents a 60 percent increase in the food insecure population since May, when 1.6 million people were estimated to be in crisis.

Several other agencies, like the World Food Programme and the United States Agency for International Development (USAid), estimated that at the close of the year 2019, the country had about 3.1 million people projected to face a food crisis.

Even with the worst-case scenario as a result of Covid-19, where many people will be rendered jobless and SMEs fail in their businesses, I doubt if 14 million people will be food insecure.

A large portion of the poor lives in rural areas. Even when they are seemingly poor, they do feed themselves.

We grew up in rural areas and we know their capacities. Let’s not begin to promise handouts where traditionally people have worked out how to feed themselves and are proud about it.

I am, however, optimistic that the article was published in good faith but with bad data.

If not, then there is need to apologise to Kenyans. There is no point of creating unnecessary fear when we are still nursing anxiety from the raging pandemic. There are more important issues to raise about food than fear of lack of the same.

Here is simple math on the politics of maize. It is estimated that Kenyans consume about 103 kilogrammes per person per year, which is more than three times the consumption of Ethiopians and more than twice what Ugandans consume.

This is approximately 4.9 million metric tonnes. Last year’s production was about 3.4 million tons down from 3.6 million tonnes. The country will have a shortfall of about 1.5 million tonnes.

That the shortfall is often budgeted for is not news anymore. The article even quoted the Grain Reserve chairman acknowledging that they had a budget for the shortfall. The news is the declining productivity, which needs to be addressed.

It is no longer productive to rely on subsistence farming if we want to achieve food security in Kenya. It is a wasteful cultural practice that we must abandon.

Those of us working in the media owe it to the people of Kenya to report responsibly with accurate and current data. For mainstream media, it doesn’t augur well to lie with statistics.