Crop forecast worse than previous poor harvest

Lesotho is heading for its third consecutive year of food shortages, as preliminary results of the latest crop assessment forecasts a harvest of less than half of the previous year. World Food Programme (WFP) deputy representative in Lesotho, Mads Lofvall, told IRIN on Tuesday that the latest figures indicated that "more longer term interventions are needed to address the underlying food security issues". In its latest situation report, WFP pointed out that "preliminary results of a mid-season assessment by FAO [Food and Agriculture Organisation] and WFP in February/March indicated that maize, wheat and sorghum production this year is expected to be only about 41,000 mt, down by more than half from the already reduced harvest of 2003". Following last year's poor harvest the government of Lesotho appealed for food aid for 600,000 people. The impact of yet another bad crop on households in the tiny mountain kingdom would be severe. "It has been decided that we need to go for an extension ... of the current EMOP [emergency operation] until the end of the year, so we can incorporate the findings of the current round of food crop assessments," Lofvall said. He explained that WFP had earlier anticipated that it would be able to end its emergency operation and shift its focus to a post-crisis recovery operation by 1 July this year. WFP was currently already feeding "between 300,000 and 400,000 people on a monthly basis" through general and targeted distributions. A figure which Lofvall now expected to "rise a little bit as a result of the recent findings". Targeted distributions focus on extremely vulnerable groups, among them children. Over 200,000 schoolchildren were being fed through a school feeding programme, which "a recent baseline survey showed that many of the schoolchildren rely heavily on, especially during the lean season, as sometimes that's the only meal they get," Lofvall said. REASONS FOR DECLINE IN OUTPUT Two major factors have contributed to the decrease in production this year. "The most important thing still has been the weather. Due to the dry spell from April last year to October, a lot of people could not prepare their land [for planting] when they were supposed to because the ground was too hard [as there was not enough moisture in the soil]," Lofvall noted. "Then there was also a change in government policy, whereas they had provided subsidised agricultural inputs before, they did not do that this season and many farmers waited for a long period [before planting] because they were counting on the government giving in and the government did not do that," he said. This had resulted in a decline in the total hectares planted. These factors have been complicated by the impact of "HIV/AIDS and underlying structural problems which will have to be addressed by more concerted development efforts". "It is very important to realise, when you talk about the agricultural sector in Lesotho, that investment in land is not encouraged. And what you see is environmental degradation due to the lack of investment," Lofvall said. It was important to address these underlying issues in order to realise the full potential of agriculture in Lesotho. WFP hoped that an eventual move from a crisis response EMOP to a more recovery focussed humanitarian engagement would help to address some of these underlying issues.