Obstacles to food security mount

The World Food Programme (WFP) began a new Emergency Relief Operation in Swaziland this month to assist 132,000 people in immediate need. The number of Swazis without food will increase as storage bins are depleted by the end of August when the winter season finishes. Some 158,000 people will need assistance from August through December. In 2004, as the nation awaits the summer harvest, projections indicate at least 217,000 Swazis will be foodless. Erratic weather has now extended Swaziland's food security crisis into its third consecutive year. In the dry lowveld region, 50 percent of farmers harvested nothing. Even if rains return, the domestic cereal supply in 2003/04 is estimated at 78,100 mt, only a fraction of the 205,800 mt consumed annually by the nation. To bridge the shortfall, 127,700 mt of food will be imported commercially. But 24,300 mt will have to come from food relief agencies. Around 20,000 mt of food aid worth US $12 million is currently arriving in the country through WFP. "There are factors besides rainfall and drought that affect crop production," Sarah Laughton, the WFP emergency coordinator for Swaziland told IRIN. "We recognise this reality, and we are targeting assistant to families affected not only by drought, but by AIDS." Laughton said yields of maize, the Swazi staple food, have declined for the past five years, particularly in drought-stricken areas, but noticeably even in areas that received adequate rainfall. AIDS is devastating the farming workforce. Small family farms cannot be cultivated if adults are sick or have died from AIDS, no matter how cooperative the weather. An estimated 29 percent of Swazi households have either no adults, or only one adult in the 19 to 60 year-old age bracket, reported WFP. Around 41 percent of households are headed by women, and 10 percent are headed by children. The United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are partnering in the effort to come up with long-term solutions to Swaziland's food production problem. "This country faces much more than a food crisis imposed by drought. AIDS has made Swaziland more vulnerable because of illness, and because of death. There is less money to buy food, with family funds now spent on medicine, care and funerals, and the breadwinner is often deceased and unable to earn money," Elizabeth Lwanga, UNDP's programme coordinator for Swaziland, told IRIN. Together with UNICEF, whose surveys found 40 percent of children under five showed signs of chronic malnutrition, WFP is expanding its traditional food distribution system to schools. "Supplying nutrition for pregnant and lactating women through clinics is part of the Emergency Relief Operation," said Laughton. "This is significant, because it signals a change in thinking about where and how food aid is delivered." Besides AIDS, chronic poverty is a stubborn obstacle to food security. "Poverty is a real problem. Two-thirds of Swazis live on less than $10, or R71 per month. By global standards, they live below the poverty line. That is from a 1999 survey, before AIDS made the situation even worse," said Lwanga. Even where food is available, families are unable to purchase basic needs when the household head cannot earn wages because of illness, or is absent. An informal sector job is usually insufficient to sustain a household. WFP and UNICEF are currently providing corn-soya blend to 25,000 primary school children, as part of a school feeding programme, 11,000 pre- and post-natal mothers at health clinics, 12,500 HIV- or AIDS-affected persons at neighbourhood "care points", and 5,000 children under five, identified through community surveys. "We are expanding our criteria for those in need. Child- and female-headed households are being targeted, along with the chronically ill, the handicapped, and orphans," said Laughton.