When the coronavirus pandemic closed the private school where she taught, “I was left jobless,” she said. The added burden on rural families - some of them struggling to feed themselves as more extreme weather linked to climate change hurts harvests - has been substantial, they and farm experts say. “Most (rural) families have been constrained as the little they had was sent to Nairobi to sustain their relatives,” said Phillip Oketch, a dairy expert with the Kenya Climate Smart Agriculture Project. “By the time the COVID pandemic struck, much of the food at the farms was already ruined,” Chabari said. Gladys Miriti, head of the Grassroots Development Initiative Foundation-Kenya and one of those receiving food from her home village during the pandemic, said the situation had provoked substantial psychological stress for many urban families.

Source: Standard Digital August 11, 2020 05:51 UTC