Food prices are already creating havoc with the food budgets and public distribution systems of various emerging markets (and creating problems with inflation in the developed countries as well). So the last thing you would expect is for countries to add to the problem, no?
No, Kenya has now managed to do that after the near civil war in the country. I quote:
Kenya, recovering from months of political violence, faces a looming food shortage and the current grain reserve could last only until August, a newspaper warned on Monday.
The Daily Nation said tribal fighting and revenge killings touched off by the disputed December 27 presidential elections had depopulated the countryside with farmland left fallow during the current planting season.
Scant rain had exacerbated the problem, it said.
"Although rain has fallen in some parts of the country, these are not auguries of good harvests this season, and the country is headed for acute food shortages in the next few months," the Nation warned in an editorial.
It spoke of "insecurity in Kenya’s breadbasket - the vast area in Western Province and North Rift where maize and other grains like wheat do well," adding that rioters had torched granaries while gangs evicted farmers from their land.
"As a result, all the maize-producing areas are about to experience record deficits this season," it said.
According to experts as well as the government, the country may be faced with a five million-bag food deficit, wiping out the current grain reserves by August, the daily said.
Given the fact that the FAO is running out of budgets to purchase food, there is aid fatigue, food exports are being clamped down (see here for example) , where on earth does Kenya think its going to get food aid from? Here's one possible source. And still nothing from the UNSC
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!
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