WFP begins emergency food relief operation in west

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun its first ever emergency food operation in the Himalayan kingdom due to acute food shortages faced by villagers in remote districts of northwestern Nepal. Traditionally, districts like Jumla, Humla, Mugu, Dolpa, Kalikot, Jajarkot, Dailekh, Rukum, Rolpa and Bajura have a history of suffering from food shortages given their high altitude locations where there are very steep slopes, poor soil and an especially dry climate — all of which limit cultivation potential, according to Action Contre la Faim (ACF), a French international NGO. But recent adverse weather conditions have made the situation in these food-deficit districts even worse. For the first time in 40 years, the country faced a severe winter drought during the harvest and pre-farming seasons from January to March, according to local agricultural experts. “Food insecurity is already a fact of life in these districts and we are very concerned that the effects of the drought will exacerbate what is already a precarious situation,” said Richard Ragan, Country Representative for WFP Nepal, which has already begun transporting emergency food assistance to target over 225,000 drought-affected villagers. Through WFP’s quick impact Food-for-Work programme, each of the beneficiaries will receive a two-month ration of rice and fortified wheat flour in return for light work activities. Additionally, the UN agency has borrowed nearly 800 mt of rice from the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) to supply to drought-stricken districts. WFP’s three-month emergency operation, estimated to cost roughly US $3 million, follows joint findings from a rapid field assessment conducted by WFP and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), with funding from UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) and the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) in May. More funds will be required to reach more people in need, WFP said, explaining that food operations were very expensive in Nepal as all of the food-deficit areas were located in isolated parts of the country. “The cost of moving the food is more than the food itself due to the remoteness of these villages,” explained Ragan, noting that food often had to be airlifted, carried by porters and on mules, costing as much as $350 per mt. Meanwhile, access challenges remain for two of the most remote and least developed districts: Humla and Mugu, which are also the country’s most food insecure areas, according to ACF. “These two districts lie in the rain-shadow of the Himalayas and receive little or no precipitation during the monsoon season,” said the NGO’s report Nutritional Exploratory Mission 2006.