PhD thesis Title Page Final _Richard Juma - Victoria University ...

lade of grass anywhere, harsh and uninviting by any standards” (Barber
1968: 69). According to Gulliver (1955: 16), the area is “notably harsh and
difficult”. Dyson-Hudson (1984: 262-263) described it as an “immature
ecosystem characterized by instability”, and Robinson (1985: 29) described
it as consisting of “vast waterless, desolate and scorching plains”.
Generally, drought has introduced extreme instability into the lives of
Turkana people and raised their inherent vulnerability to an unsustainable
level, and to more aberrant forms of uncertainty for which they cannot
plan. It has been documented that drought, among other factors, is the
major cause of poverty in the Turkana District (Republic of Kenya 2002:
20). According to district rankings on food poverty among 75 rural districts
in Kenya, Turkana is the third highest with more than 74 per cent of their
population living below the poverty line (Republic of Kenya 2002: 20). This
magnitude of poverty was made even worse by the recent prolonged
drought of 2005-2006 and its devastating impact on all sectors of the
economy.
Due to the harsh nature of the Turkana District and the fact that Turkana
people frequently face food insecurity, measures are necessary for
assisting their survival. But famine prevention measures in the Turkana
region, as in other pastoral areas in Kenya, has not been a foundation for
the political legitimacy of Kenya’s ruling classes as it has been in the
urban areas and, at crucial political moments preceding elections, in the
central highlands (De Waal 1997). Consequently, little has been done by
the Kenya government to tackle the structural causes of famine in the
Turkana district (Hendrickson, et al. 1998). Hitherto the Kenya
government’s only response to ameliorate the problems of food shortages
in the Turkana District has been the provision of famine relief food. The
British distributed relief food in the Turkana District as early as 1932
(Hogg 1982). This provision of relief food, though initially seen as a
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