Tuesday, August 16, 2011

How to Beat Hunger

Hunger problems


If asked, I’d say the problems we are facing now with hunger and other issues related to agriculture and development are man made and deliberate. Drought and poor soils should not be an excuse. In his right wisdom, God gave the Israelites land in the middle of a desert in the name of land flowing with milk and honey. From Egypt, God could have chosen to take the Jews to the fertile lands of Ethiopia, Kenya or even the rainy forests of Congo but I suppose milk and honey is not in the fertile lands, they are all in the head.  Israel produces enough food for its people and more for export -it is even feeding Kenyans.
Indigenous knowledge
Instead of blaming nature, the Kenyan government should rejuvenate the Arid and semi Arid Land Resource Management (Asal) Projects and then invest in educating the communities on sustainable farming practices that are viable there. The youths should be involved instead of moving to the cities for greener pastures –they form the greatest human resource.


There’s need to intertwine the indigenous technology and modern technology. The locals have their own systems on how to forecast on the looming drought and how to tackle it. These should be embraced as they have been there since the times of our forefathers.
We should also get out of the rain fed agriculture and promote irrigation. Rain water harvesting should be encouraged, build dams, dig wells and maintain them to try and beat famine.

Youths working hard
To move forward, we must; be ready to serve the community whenever called upon; promote leadership at any given level; use technology to tackle famine and other emerging issues related to drought; have disaster arresting and mitigation mechanism in place to avert crisis; never sell every food supplies store – have some for emergency and finally; harvesting of rain water in Arid areas is panacea to solving food crisis.  

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