Kenyan farmers, hit by drought, relocate to slums
Nanyuki, Kenya (AFP) Aug 19, 2009 – In Kenya a bruising and recurring drought is driving huge numbers of subsistence farmers away from rural areas, where they are increasingly reliant on hand-outs, into congested slums. “People are opting to relocate. I know families that are demolishing their houses, selling iron sheets and timber and getting back to the nearest towns and settling in slums,” said Steven Waweru, an official with Caritas that helps distribute World Food Programme aid in the region. “In this village, about 50 percent of people have moved to the slum areas. This is going to increase pressure in town,” he said, adding: “We’ve not seen that for a long long time”. “We see a very, very bad scenario in the next six months if no rains come down.” … Lucy Gathigia Mahinda, a farmer of 52, has held out so far. She is still on her land but is reduced to receiving food aid and even with that can only feed her seven children once a day. That meal consists of corn donated by the UN food agency, washed down with tea. She is deeply ashamed of her reliance on aid, but recognises that after four failed rainy seasons, she has no option. “It’s shameful and a bit degrading for a strong person with land to continue lining up and begging for food to survive. I have no choice at the moment,” she told AFP in Nyariginu village in Laikipia district. In this district, traditionally one of the country’s bread baskets, 190 kilometres (118 miles) north of Nairobi, fields of dead corn give way to arid plains where no livestock graze. … Dozens of rotting animal carcasses pile up among the pine trees. “The livestock still hasn’t recovered from the 2005 drought. And already we have to confront a new drought. The drought cycle is getting shorter and shorter – every three or four years instead of every 10,” a district veterinary official told AFP. …
