Government taps grain reserve to fight food shortage

The Tanzanian government has released 7,215 mt of maize from its Strategic Grain Reserve to sell at a highly-subsidised price to people suffering from severe food shortages in 16 districts of the country, FEWS NET reported on Friday. It said that the relief maize released would be sold at 50 Tanzanian shillings (US $0.05) per kg, having been bought from the strategic reserve at 150 shillings ($0.15) per kg. "Commercial market prices in some villages among the food shortage districts were already over 200 shillings/kg during June/July and are likely to have increased further," FEWS said. However, it said that two shortcomings were likely to emerge in distribution of the released relief food. First, it said, there was not enough relief food available at present to meet current and future needs. It said this year's Rapid Vulnerability Assessments (RVA) identified approximately two million persons in 47 districts as vulnerable to food shortage between October 2003 and March 2004. In October alone, it said, 1.1 million people in 27 districts would require 10,489 mt of subsidised food supplies. By November, it added, the number will have increased to 1.23 million in 31 districts, requiring 12,262 mt that month alone. "Because the released relief food is even lower than the requirements for October only, it is necessary that the government release urgently additional relief food for selling at a subsidised price," FEWS said. Also, because there were additional needy districts not included in the June/July assessment, the total food needs would be greater than anticipated by the assessment, it said. Second, FEWS said that targeting of beneficiaries would be difficult, particularly in the districts that were not covered by the June/July assessment. "It may take some time to identify with reasonable accuracy the vulnerable persons by number and location," it said. "This difficulty may also arise in those districts covered only in the November 2002 RVA, as villages and persons identified as experiencing food shortages at that time may be different from the ones experiencing problems currently." Among the 47 districts facing severe food shortages, 25 are in regions that experienced considerable increases in already high maize prices, including Arusha, Manyara, Lindi, Mbeya, Tabora, Mwanza, Morogoro, Singida, and Dodoma. FEWS said that price increases were further eroding poor households' access to their major staple food. On a more positive note, FEWS said that the September-December rainfall forecast indicated that northern parts of Tanzania were likely to receive near normal to above normal rainfall, while the rest of the country should experience near normal to below normal rainfall. For the complete report, go to www.fews.net FEWS NET, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, is a USAID-funded activity that collaborates with international, national, and regional partners to provide early warning and vulnerability information on emerging or evolving food security issues.