Tharaka Nithi County: Drought Early Warning Bulletin for August 2013
Attachments
Situation Overview:
- Dry weather prevailed all days of the month as no rainfall was received during the reporting period. The forage quality and quantity is fair to worse and has continued to diminish compared to the month of July.
- The main source of water for August was permanent natural rivers.
- The average distance for livestock to water points increased by 20.88% in comparison to the month of July while house hold access to water increased by 4.55% in August.
- The body condition for livestock was fair to poor across all livelihood zones, with a declining trend. This is attributed to poor pasture conditions setting in and the increase in distance to watering points.
- The prices for cattle in the month of August recorded 4% increase compared to the previous month while prices for goats increased by 4.22% in August as compared to July.
- There was reduction of milk production by7.4 % at household level across livelihood zones, with average household consumption decreasing by 11.97 % during the period under review. This could be attributed to deteriorating forage quality and quantity and increased distance to grazing and water sources that severely affected livestock productivity.
- The average price per kg of maize increased by 2.79 % to Ksh. 29.40 in the month of August compared to Ksh. 28.60 recorded in July .The increasing prices could be attributed to declining house hold food stocks and insignificant on farm crop harvests.
- The main sources of income remained relatively constant in the month of review in comparison to July. The larger percentage of households (32%) relied on casual labour.
However, the income from remittances increased from 4% in July to 7% in August. - The average daily wage rate was Ksh. 219.00 fairly comparable to Ksh. 221.30 recorded in July
- There were five confirmed cases of measles in Kathangachini location and the measles vaccination carried out in the month of August for children under 5years.
The proportion of children at risk of malnutrition was 8.47% in August. This a relatively high percentage compared to 7.32% which is the norm at this time of the year
The overall Early Warning System phase for August is alert with a deteriorating trend.