Hunger man-made

The latest Global Hunger Index report presents a shameful picture of Kenya, amongst a cluster of African countries facing severe food shortages.

A country that has always prided itself as an island of prosperity and stability in a sea of turmoil, is regressing to the ranks where hunger is endemic.

It is easy to blame the weather, but many studies would point to mismanagement rather than the elements. As demonstrated so many years go by Nobel Prize winning economist Amartya Sen, famine is not an act of God, but an act of man.

It is instructive that Kenya and the band of countries across a swathe of East and Central Africa facing severe food problems have in the past grown adequate food, and even surplus for export.

They in fact have climatic and soil conditions much more favourable than many of the countries in the Sahara region in West and North Africa that, ironically, are not as badly hit.

The inescapable conclusion is that the culprit is not failed rains, but failed leadership. The poor are condemned to starvation by corruption, poor policies, inefficient storage and distribution systems, environmental degradation, and the stampede from food crops to flowers, coffee and other cash crops for export markets.

But the supermarkets are full of imported foodstuffs for the rich.