Dry spell in southern provinces causes concern

Unless rainfall improves, the food security situation in southern Mozambique could deteriorate, according to an official report released this week. The report by the Food Security and Nutrition Technical Secretariat (SETSAN), a government-run multisectoral body, was made after a mission to districts in the southern provinces of Gaza, Inhambane and Maputo provinces, which received sporadic rainfall in the planting season between October and December 2004. "Erratic rains caused significant damage to crops in various plantings ... the dry spell severely affected crops, particularly maize," said the report, prepared with technical assistance from the Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS NET), which is also part of the secretariat. The food security situation, particularly in the interior of Gaza and Inhambane, where households largely depend on their own production, would require monitoring from April onward, said the mission. "If there is no rainfall in the coming weeks, contingency plans must be updated and potential intervention scenarios must be developed," the report recommended, and the government should facilitate the distribution of seeds for the current season. The mission also proposed the construction of more small-scale irrigation schemes close to rivers and lagoons in the drought-prone region. In its most recent update, released last month, FEWS NET reported that food aid distributions in targeted areas had helped contain levels of food insecurity, especially in the south. The secretariat noted that while chronic malnutrition levels were high in Mozambique, there was no indication of acute malnutrition in the districts its mission visited. Mozambican authorities are currently assessing the impact on national crop production of recent heavy rains in the north and erratic rains in the south.