For Kenyan farmer James Kiplang'at, this year could have been the best in his recent farming history.

Like many of his peers in the Bomet region, about 300 km southwest of the capital Nairobi, he expected a bumper maize harvest from his 8-acre farm. Government officials and international organizations had said this would be a good year.

They had told farmers here that this year's rainfall prospects would be higher than in 2011, when a five-month drought shriveled his dreams.

A March situational report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), for instance, stated that the East African region would have "generally good" harvests because the rains would be reasonable.

"Following above-average rains that started on time or earlier than usual, prospects for the secondary short rains cereal crops are generally good, especially in Kenya, Somalia, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda," FAO observed in Crop Prospects and Food Situation.

But now Kiplang'at sits in the shade of his mango tree, head in his hands. That prospect is no more. His maize field was among the many here that were attacked by a mysterious disease, where leaves shrivel up just as the plants are nearing flowering.

Although Kenyan Agriculture Minister Sally Kosgey announced that the disease was totally under control, the destruction of the more than 300,000 hectares of maize fields in this region alone could be another blow to national food security.

Kenya, like most of her neighbors in the Horn of Africa normally consumes more food than it can produce. With maize as a staple food, Kenya requires at least 42 million bags of maize (4.2 million tons) to feed her 42 million people. Yet it can only produce 30 million bags, according to its Ministry of Agriculture.

At the moment, FAO estimates that 3.75 million people in Kenya, 2.3 million in Somalia, 3.2 million in Ethiopia, 4.2 million in Sudan and 1 million in South Sudan do not have enough food to see them through this year, due to lingering effects of the 2011 drought.

Last year, the Horn of Africa produced a cumulative of 37.6 million tons of cereal: maize, wheat, sorghum and millet, against a population of about 200 million people. FAO attributed this to poor farming methods and broken distribution chains, so that farmers who have plenty cannot transport their harvests to markets where the hungry live.

Then in April, a forecast by the Climate Prediction and Applications Center (ICPAC) of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) warned that dry weather conditions are likely to return to most areas of Somalia, northern and southeastern Kenya, southern and northeastern Ethiopia, southern lowlands of Eritrea and Djibouti.

"The impact of this event materializing would be devastating to an already exhausted population," said ICPAC.

Other reasons for the impending food shortage range from civil insecurity and poor policies to over reliance on rainfall agriculture.

Apart from the disease, Kenya also suffered from floods when some regions in western Kenya had crops swept away. And in a country where certified seeds and fertilizer are expensive, the loss of crops to floods was unimaginable.

With this pattern likely to continue, food experts in the region are now saying governments would have to step up to improve the situation.

"Diseases aside, we would have enough food if the government en abled farmers to access fertilizer and seeds at subsidized rates. The formula is simple, if you make production cheaper, the product would be cheaper too," said Mary Mathenge, an agricultural researcher with the Tegemeo Institute in Kenya.

A paper published by the Institute in April showed that only Uganda and Tanzania among the East African countries do not require external assistance. The region imported more than 8.3 million tons of food, of which over 2 million were in aid rations. In 2012, relief agencies have already pledged to bring in half a million tons before August.

According to the East African Grain Council, an agency that helps farmers deliver their produce to better markets, the region would have enough if it assures farmers of a proper market for their produce.

"It will motivate farmers to produce more since there will be certainty in terms of market for their produce during harvesting and prompt payment as soon as they deliver their commodities," the council's Communications and Marketing Manager Janet Ngombalu told ChinAfrica.

The UN admits to this problem. In June, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the East Africa Community (EAC) launched a new initiative to boost food production and income opportunities for farmers through promoting markets in East Africa.

The region awaits the outcome of this initiative.

(Reporting from Kenya)