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Since mid-March this year, Kenya has suffered multiple rounds of heavy rainfall, and caused floods, landslides and other disasters, which have so far caused at least 289 deaths, more than 280,000 displacements, and a major impact on local agricultural production.
In a village in Kenya's Baringo county, farmers planted crops in March after the dry season, hoping for abundant rain and a good harvest in the coming rainy season. Unexpectedly, this year's rainfall was much higher than the average for the same period of the year. The floodwaters not only caused rivers to burst, but also flooded vast swaths of farmland, washed away thousands of livestock, and caused severe losses to local farmers and herders. Officials said the economic damage from the floods could be as high as $8 million.
Kipruto, Baringo County Official, Kenya: You can see here that millions or even billions of shillings have been lost on local farms, and people have lost their livelihoods.
Kenya and many other East African countries are facing a food crisis due to crop failures caused by floods. But what is more serious, experts say, is that with climate change and extreme weather events, the agricultural environment is changing, and the future of food cultivation will become more difficult and unpredictable.
Keilu, an economics expert at the University of Nairobi, Kenya: The food producers in this country are small-scale farmers who have been greatly affected, and some of the crops they grow will not even be harvested, and some of the land has been flooded, such as crops like beans and tomatoes, which cannot grow in the flooded water, and all of them are rotting.
Climate volatility and extreme weather events, such as floods, storms and droughts, have been among the leading causes of global hunger and malnutrition in recent years, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Between 2000 and 2020, the proportion of low- and middle-income countries experiencing extreme weather increased from 76% to 98%.
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Intern Editor: Carrie To