More Kenyans are in need of emergency food today than they were 20 years ago and the situation may get worse, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) says in a new report.

The report, Global Hunger Index (GHI), that measures levels of malnutrition and hunger was released on Wednesday.

It shows that Kenya's hunger rating has moved from "serious" to "alarming".

Mr Suresh Babu from the Food, Security, Poverty and Nutrition Policy Analysis says that should the trend continue it could push the country to the "extremely alarming" bracket.

"Kenya is a hunger hot spot and the index shows that it has been failing in food security for the last 20 years compared with other countries," the analyst said during the release of the report in Nairobi.

The GHI ranks countries on a 100-point scale, with zero being the best score -- indicating no hunger -- and 100 points being the worst.

A score between 10 and 19.99 is ranked as serious, between 20 and 29.99 such as Kenya's means the situation is alarming, and beyond that means extremely alarming.

Although Kenya is ranked in the alarming tier with an index of 20.2 points, should the index exceed the 30 point mark the country could be plunged into the extremely alarming tier where it would share a podium with countries such as Zimbabwe and the Liberia.

Government figures indicate that nearly 10 million Kenyans face starvation, but the number could be higher according to IFPRI.

Mr Titus Mung'ou of the Kenya Red Cross says that the conflicting data is due to migratory patterns among rural pastoral communities and inaccessibility of data from conflict hit areas.

"When we talk of Kenyans facing hunger we should talk of 10 million plus people," he says.

The country's hunger situation is blamed on poor rains coupled with the global financial crises which has affected the tourism and horticulture industries' earnings resulting in layoffs as firms cut cost.

Concern Worldwide country director, Anne O'Mahony, says the majority of Kenyans facing hunger are the poor based in rural areas and those living in urban slums.

"People in rural areas who depend on subsistence farming and casual workers have mostly been affected, forced to scale down their calorie intake to one meal a day," she says. "People in rural area do not have a strong voice as those in urban areas, so the situation may not get as much attention in those areas," she adds.

The IFPRI report comes in the wake of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP) reports which say that this year has seen 1.02 billion people, 100 million more than last year, undernourished, the highest number in four decades.

"The rising number of hungry people is intolerable," said FAO director-general, Jacques Diouf, as the new report on world hunger was released.

The situation may get worse with WFP saying that it is cutting food rations and scaling down operations in places like Kenya due to dwindling funds as a result of the global crisis.

Bussiness Daily (Nairobi)