Nakuru County residents have been urged to diversify their eating habits instead of relying on maize as their staple food.

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Speaking at Sinendet Primary School in Njoro on Monday during a food donation exercise Lare Deputy sub-county commissioner Dolphin Wanzala urged area residents to embrace high value crops like cassava, sweet potatoes, sorghum, rice and bananas alongside maize.

“My office is liaising with the agriculture department to teach the public alternative eating habits,” said Wanzala who was accompanied by area Chief Ezekiel Omboti.

She said the government was keen to put budgetary allocations to the traditional foods such as sorghum, millet, cassava, bananas, and potatoes to ensure food security in the country.

Omboti also called on the government to introduce feeding programmes in schools next year to boost learning in institutions.

Residents thanked the government for the relief food and asked the relevant ministry to enable them cultivate alternative crops to increase food security.

“We thank the government for their support during these times of rampant food shortages,” said Joseph Kinyanjui, a resident.

More than 200 households and over 3,000 residents affected by food shortages benefited from the relief food donated by the government.

The drive comes amid reports that the country is facing a slight shortage in maize following poor harvest in the last planting seasons. The poor harvest was attributed to erratic rainfall during the long and short rain seasons, inadequate access to fertiliser and maize lethal necrotic disease which affected crops on 18,000 hectares in Rift Valley and Nyanza regions.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the outbreak of the maize disease (MLND) may reduce maize harvest by almost a third this year as yields fall and growers abandon the grain for other crops.

Kenya produced 2.8 million metric tonnes of maize in the marketing year that ended in June 2014 according to the US Foreign Agriculture Service, which also predicted a similar harvest next year, before the outbreak.