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Author Topic: Food relief urgent for Kenya's drought-stricken communities
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 16 February 2006 09:41 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
More than 350 Maasai braved strong winds and stinging dust at the Seuseu cultural centre in Oloshoiboi, a community in the Ngong Hills, Kenya, to receive drought relief food in late January. A majority of those at the centre were women, who bear much of the burden caused by the lack of rain. Some women had walked for more than three hours to Seuseu to pick up their share of the relief goods, only to carry it on their backs for the return trip. The nine-month drought has claimed the lives of five people in this tight-knit community, along with thousands of livestock, including donkeys, goats, sheep and cattle.

Cultural Survival


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 16 February 2006 11:31 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Kenya is suffering another drought and people there are starving while G8 countries are importing Kenya's cash crops.

“We have never seen anything as bad as this,” said Mr Abdi, a 40-year herder who has lost everything he owned, 100 goats and 200 cows since the rains failed again in December. Denaba Mohamed saw most of her fifteen camels die of hunger and fears for the health of her children. Her 14-month-old girl weighs only 4.6kg, half the normal weight for a child that age.

The devastating drought has left 5.4 million people in desperate need of food but the grain silos in Kenyas ports are full ready for export and the worlds affluent enjoying all the usual benefits of the 'free' market.

Although less than a fifth of its land is arable, Kenya is a net food exporter. While the west send token 'aid', grain silos are still full from last year’s harvest. Despite the drought, the government forecasts a surplus of 62,500 metric tonnes of maize next year.

So why are 27% of children malnourished?

Why is land being used to grow crops for export (usually for animal feed in europe) rather than being used to feed the local inhabitants?


January 18, 2006


The main problem for Kenya, apart from the devastating droughts, is the neoliberal economic policies forced on them by the IMF in the name of globalization. Kenya used to be self-sufficient in food. But with the advent of "liberalized" trade rules and unrestricted commodity dumping, Kenya now imports 80% of its food, while 80% of its exports are agricultural.

quote:
In many places like Kenya... traditional farming practices were productive over thousands of years because they were intuitively ecology-based. But the influence of the West — from the colonial period up through the present era of globalization — has all but erased the legacy of that experience-based knowledge. Western practices such as mono-cropping (maize), growing export crops (coffee, tea, etc.), and reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides all deplete soil fertility. As a result, the productivity on family farms declines with each growing season, causing health and nutrition problems and increasing poverty. It is a formula for misery.
Source


The country's economic and climatic problems are compounded by the runaway AIDS epidemic:

quote:
Each year, hundreds of thousands of Kenyan women are widowed by AIDS. Because Kenyan laws and customs bar women from owning and inheriting property, women and their children are often forcibly displaced from their homes when their husbands die. Displacement increases women's risk of contracting HIV by exposing them to poverty, homelessness, violence, and disease, sometimes compelling them to trade sex for food and shelter. Protecting women's property rights is an urgent component of HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. But safeguarding these rights entails challenging law and tradition and spotlighting volatile issues related to land tenure and distribution of resources in an impoverished country.

In fact, any successful prevention strategy has to promote women's social and economic rights. Yet the dominant approach remains the Bush administration's ill-conceived "ABC" strategy: "Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms." Abstinence is not a choice for women who are raped or coerced into sex. Faithfulness is irrelevant for women whose husbands have multiple partners (for African women, marriage is actually a risk factor for contracting HIV).


[ 16 February 2006: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged

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