EDITORIAL: Hunger by design: Kenya’s food crisis is a failure of leadership

Kenya is not just battling the weather—it is confronting the consequences of its own choices.

In a matter of months, the country has lurched from drought to devastating floods, a brutal 'climate whiplash' that has left more than 3.7 million people facing acute hunger.

But to call this a natural disaster is to miss the point. What Kenya is experiencing is a man-made crisis, years in the making.

The warning signs have long been clear. Kenya’s slide to 103rd place in the Global Hunger Index, with a “serious” hunger rating, is not an overnight failure. It is the cumulative result of chronic underinvestment, policy inertia and a dangerous dependence on imported food.

Even as the country spends roughly Sh500 billion annually importing staples, it allocates a paltry 3.2 per cent of its budget to agriculture—far below its own commitments. This is not just neglect; it is abdication.

Communities in Mandera, Wajir and Kilifi, already battered by drought, are now watching floods destroy what little they had left. In Baringo and Homa Bay, irrigation schemes are submerged and topsoil washed away. The tragedy is not only that crops are failing—but that the systems meant to protect them barely exist.

Kenya does not lack rain. It lacks dams. It lacks storage. It lacks the foresight to turn climate shocks into opportunity. Instead, up to 40 per cent of food rots before it reaches the market, even in good seasons.

The truth is stark: hunger in Kenya persists not because solutions are unknown, but because they are not implemented. Passing laws like the Right to Food Act and investing in climate-resilient agriculture are not radical demands—they are basic obligations.

Until the State treats food as a right, not a commodity, this cycle will continue. And the cost will be counted not in policy papers, but in empty plates.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.”—French novelist Jules Verne, known as the ‘Father of Science Fiction’, died on March 24, 1905