NAKURU, 9 September 2009 (IRIN) - For decades the water pan in Daniel Waatho's farm at Njoro in Kenya's Rift Valley province never dried up - until drought hit the area this year.

"I normally harvest rainwater, but last year [2008] was the last time we had some proper rain, so my water pan has dried up," he said.

The drought killed his premature maize crop, while the beans shrivelled and died before reaching the podding stage.

That, however, is just one of Waatho's worries. With the weatherman predicting El Niño rains across Kenya soon, he is torn between preparing his farm for maize or diversifying into short-term crops such as beans, sorghum and cassava.

"I am told El Niño rains are coming. Will my crops recover or will the water pan fill up with soil from the upper farms?" he asked, pointing to the pan at the lowest point of his farm.

Be prepared

Although it is believed this year’s El Niño will not be as severe as that of 1998, the Kenya Meteorological Department has urged the country to be prepared for the rains, expected between mid-September and December.

Joseph Mukabana, the department's director, told a news conference in late August that the El Niño impact was likely to be aggravated by the prolonged drought in many parts of the country.

At least 20 million people are food insecure in the greater Horn of Africa, which includes Kenya, because of the drought, according to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net).

These countries, it added, suffer chronic poverty, civil war or insecurity, refugees and internally displaced persons, environmental degradation, poor marketing mechanisms and constrained income opportunities.

"The environment is quite sick, it is not wearing any clothes, the pastures are degraded and the impact is likely to be more soil erosion and siltation," Mukabana said. Flooding and mudslides, he added, were likely to occur in parts of the country.

The good and bad

Waatho said El Niño would enable him to resume farming. "Although I can't say I have given up [maize-planting], I am seriously thinking about going into other crops," Waatho told IRIN in Njoro.

"I will need seed for these crops; I am therefore appealing to the government to help us farmers with seed and the fertilizer for us to make use of the rains."

The government has set up a crisis centre in the prime minister's office to coordinate emergency interventions and is working with relief agencies, NGOs and development partners to plan for the adverse impact of El-Niño-related rains.

"The effects of El Niño are not the flood waters but the after-effects," Davies Okoko, the disaster preparedness manager for the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS), said on 9 September. "Soon after the floods pass, there will be waterborne diseases, contamination of water sources and other effects."

Rapid response

Like other relief agencies and the government, KRCS has designed a preparedness plan that includes training members from its 62 branches in emergency response in health, water and sanitation, relief, logistics, communication and reporting.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, it has also put in place a structure for rapid deployment and response coordinated by its Emergency Operation Centre.

The society believes the rains will have a beneficial effect. "Favourable conditions are expected by the end of the year," Abdishakur Othowai, the KRCS special programmes manager, said.

"El Niño will lead to food production, especially in the [marginally agricultural] Ukambani areas since they rely on short rains."

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