It's time to fix the world's broken food system

In Kenya I saw how rising food prices, land grabs and lack of investment in small-scale farming turn drought into famine

Gallery of Rankin's photographs for Oxfam's Blog Action Day
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Hungry locals in Turkana, Kenya
Hungry locals in Turkana, Kenya asked not for food or aid, but for rain. Photograph: Rankin/Oxfam

Earlier this year I travelled to Turkana in Kenya for a photo shoot. I was there to capture images of the "broken food system" for Oxfam and through my experiences I also captured the reality of what it's like to be living without food security.

When hungry locals, some of whom had not eaten for two, three, sometimes even four days were asked what they needed, not one person asked for food or aid. Instead they suggested: "What we need is to be able to have rain." There has been a drought since 2005.

Awoi Ngasike in Kenya Awoi Ngasike, 70, holds a day's worth of food in the palm of his hands. Photograph: Rankin/Oxfam

As a special visitor, I was greeted with songs and dancing. The locals used to sing and dance all the time but now Turkana is silent and has been for some years. No one is singing or dancing anymore because they have no food, nothing to celebrate. People appear vibrant and full of life, but many are surviving on one handful of maize a day and water, which they can get just every two days. They are surviving on food that fits into the palm of my hand, just two daily tiny meals. If they have to, they kill one of their few remaining goats but when that last remaining opportunity is gone, they will be completely dependent on food aid.

I met Tede Lokapelo, a pastoralist who described the stark reality of a six-year drought. Tede used to have 200 goats. He has only seven left. He told me that this drought has taught him a hard lesson: it is too difficult to keep animals. His strong dependence on livestock, their traditional way of life, has been completely destroyed. Without the food aid they get, Tede is certain that they would starve because there are no other sources to feed themselves left.

Unfortunately, this story is not unique. Sadly, the same could be heard in almost any developing country around the world. Almost one billion people go to bed hungry each night. The food system is broken. In Turkana, sufficient rain hasn't fallen since 2005. They measure rainfall not in days or weeks but in minutes. While severe drought has undoubtedly led to the huge scale of the disaster, this crisis has been caused by people and policies, as much as by weather patterns. Climate change, rising food prices, lack of investment in small-scale farming and the grabbing of land being used to grow food for local people by speculative investors has resulted in communities just not being able to grow enough food to survive. More and more people are being forced to rely on food aid, but people like Tede don't want handouts. They want to work, they want to create their own economy, their own sustainability. It doesn't have to be about charity, it's our responsibility – governments, investors, civil society – to fix the system so that they can sustain their own lives.

Drought is inevitable but famine is manmade, and unless sufficient funding is provided to develop basic infrastructure for people in the region, thousands more lives are sure to be lost. The response to the current crisis in east Africa is too little too late. I'm writing for Blog Action Day to call upon politicians, campaigners and businesses to address the food system and how we can fix it to ensure that everyone has enough to eat.

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