Aaron Nanok, an agronomist who has been named Kenyan UN Person of the Year, has asked the government to make food systems resilient to become nutrition secure.
Mr Nanok’s win is attributed to his steadfast contribution to the food crisis that is facing the country, made worse by a biting drought in many parts of Kenya.
“We can only be food and nutrition secure if we make our agri-food systems resilient and include food not only as a human right, (but) a common and public good,” Mr Nanok said.
Kenya is in the grip of hunger that saw President William Ruto flag off food donations just weeks after being sworn in as fifth head of State, taking the usual path travelled by previous regimes.
It has become an annual ritual to send food donations to regions prone to hunger, among them Turkana County, where Mr Nanok works in the regional government’s in agri-nutrition unit.
“Aaron Nanok, an agronomist from Turkana County named as the UN in Kenya Person of the Year Award winner 2022 for his commitment to sustainable agriculture,” the UN wrote.
He is being recognised for his focus on sustainable agriculture at a time Kenya has allowed commercial growing of genetically modified crops in the push to achieve food security.
Already the Kenya Agricultural and Livestock Reserach Organisation (KALRO) says up to 500,000 acres will be under GMO crops through distribution of seeds to farmers across the country.
However, opinion is still divided on the safety of genetically-modified organisms that some studies linked to cancerous infection in 2012 that led to Kenya outlawing GMOs. The publication linking such crops to cancer was, however, withdrawn.
Mr Nanok thanked the county government of Turkana and the World Food Programme (WPF-Kenya) for supporting his idea into a workable solution.
“Thank you WFP for nominating me for this award. I would like to thank my employer for giving me the opportunity that other youths yearn to make the lives of other people better,” he said.
Previous winners of the award are broadcaster Martin Nyongesa King’asia, nutritionist and food scientist Wawira Njiru, and Peter Tabichi, a teacher who has won other global awards and is now in the presidential team reviewing Kenya’s education landscape.
