FAO warns of localised food supply difficulties

The overall food supply outlook in West Africa is favourable, but localised food supply difficulties are likely in several parts of the region as a result of floods and other ills, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned last week. Contributory factors, it said, include severe flooding in northern Ghana, Nigeria, northern Senegal and southern Mauritania. FAO noted that food shortages also persisted in Sierra Leone, where instability continues to disrupt agricultural production in some areas. In Liberia, it said, production remains constrained due to the impact of a civil war that lasted throughout the 1990s.