WFP appeals for cash to buy food in-country

Despite a good harvest in certain highly productive areas Kenya, drought conditions have persisted well beyond expectations in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Tuesday in appealing for cash donations from donors to allow the purchase of relief food in Kenya itself.

Rains were above normal in parts of the Rift Valley, central Kenya, Western Province and Nyanza, western Kenya, allowing for good crop production, but scarce rainfall during the long rains (March to May) had prevented the expected recovery of pasture and water sources in arid and semi-arid districts, the agency reported.

The worst drought-affected districts are in Central, Northeastern and Rift Valley provinces, where most families are pastoralists or agro-pastoralist, it said.

The continuing drought and resulting lack of forage for animals had forced many families to take their livestock further and further away from their homes in search for better grazing, it stated. Cases of livestock death had already been witnessed in Tana River, Garissa, Wajir and Mandera districts, the agency added.

In a meeting with the donor community on Tuesday morning, WFP made a special appeal for cash donations to allow it buy 60,000 mt of food within Kenya to continue assisting 3.1 million people affected by drought.

"There is a lot of maize available in Kenya and its market price is well below average, so we urged donors to give us cash to buy relief food locally", said WFP Country Director for Kenya, Tesema Negash.

"Local producers are having difficulties in selling their maize stocks. If we buy food from them we can have a double role: assisting the populations affected by the drought, as well as supporting local farmers," he added.

WFP said it had planned to reduce the food rations being distributed to drought-affected communities by at least 50 percent in October in most of Kenya but had been unable to do so because of persistent lack of rain and further deterioration of pasturelands.

"We had sincerely hoped that the weather conditions would improve, allowing families to have more food for themselves and their livestock. Unfortunately, that is not the case," Negash said on Tuesday. "In these circumstances, we cannot reduce the assistance as we had planned."

The UN food agency has started more than 1,100 food-for-work projects in Kenya, with more than 340,000 people intended to benefit.

It also intends to continue to provide supplementary food for more than 278,000 children under five years, as well as 84,000 nursing mothers and pregnant women in districts where general food assistance is provided.

More than 1.3 million school children are also continuing to receive a midday meal through WFP's school feeding programme, in an effort to sustain school attendance in the face of drought-related hardship for families and communities, according to the agency.

Last year, WFP provided food assistance to more than 4.4 million victims of the drought in Kenya.