At Alliance for Food Security we are committed to playing our part in ensuring that all people have access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food at all times. We however recognize that as it stands out now, the ideal situation described above is far from being achieved, it’s still a mirage.

Millions of people across the world continue to face desperate food shortages accelerated by an assortment of factors including but not limited to inadequate water especially for agricultural activities, over-reliance on seasonal rainfall that sometimes fails,  use of substandard/rudimentary farming and value addition technologies, negative effects of climate change, inadequate government policies, focus and commitment, limited knowledge on the part of farmers, inadequate marketing channels for farmers, discard of some good, sustainable and drought resistant traditional food crops among communities,  prohibitive and stringent tariffs and non-tariffs border rules that hinder movement  of food, poor transportation infrastructure that hinders movement of food from food-surplus areas to food-deficit areas, Poor post-harvest management techniques, wars and civil strife, terrorism , corruption, unemployment, over-exploitation of sections of the population by other sections in the same population, incompatible individual, group or communal mindsets regarding food production, laziness, diseases and self-limiting restrictions on what to eat or not.

Since food insecurity is closely linked to poverty, food insecure areas in the world are the embodiment of poverty, some of it extreme. This brings to the forefront the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, which statistics show has the highest poverty levels as well as the highest food insecurity.

Availability of water for agricultural and domestic uses has particularly serious implications on people’s food security and especially the chronically food insecure areas whose people suffer from extreme poverty. About 80% of Kenya’s populations, just like in many other countries in the African continent reside in the rural areas where agriculture is the mainstay and by extension these economies are about 80% dependent on agriculture.

The cumulative effects of the above causes of food insecurity and many others not mentioned herein have precipitated a rapid decline in food security for both households and individuals. Children are particularly most vulnerable to food insecurity. For instance according to FAO (2019), maternal and child under-nutrition contributes to 45 percent of deaths in children under five. Overweight and obesity are on the rise in almost all countries, contributing to 4 million deaths globally. The various forms of malnutrition are intertwined throughout the life cycle, with maternal under-nutrition, low birth weight and child stunting giving rise to increased risk of overweight later in life.