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Title: | From drought to famine in Kenya |
Author: | Bates, R.H. |
Book title: | Satisfying Africa's food needs: food production and commercialization in African agriculture / ed. by Ronald Cohen. - Boulder, Col. [etc.]: Lynne Rienner Publishers |
Year: | 1988 |
Pages: | 103-119 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Kenya |
Subjects: | famine droughts |
Abstract: | This paper studies the relationship between droughts and famines in Kenya. Not all droughts in Kenya have become famines. Three sets of factors appear to influence the likelihood of drought resulting in famine: the magnitude of the drought, the vulnerability of the population to drought, and the management of food stocks. This paper focuses on the behaviour and impact of the 'controllables': the public policies and political institutions that affect the relationship between rainfall and food supply, particularly the behaviour of the national bureaucracy charged with the maintenance of national food stocks, here called the Maize Board. Contrary to expectations, fluctuations in the rainfall do not appear to affect the Board's stocks, nor do they affect purchases by the Board. But they do affect Board sales. The evidence suggests a systematic tendency for the Board to manage its affairs in such a way that periods of abundance alternate with periods of dearth, such that the nation's grain stocks reenter situations that leave the nation vulnerable to famine. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |