Food assistance needed despite good harvests

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said that the food supply situation in the West African sub region was generally favourable in 2003, although six countries continue to need food assistance due mainly to the fall-out from civil unrest in the region. The report, the first for 2004, prepared by FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), notes that conflict and unrest, which has led to the presence of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees, in Cote d'Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, had put these countries in need of continued food aid. Arid Mauritania, which is under threat of a plague of locusts, has also been listed as in need of food assistance, as has Cape Verde – the small island nation in the Atlantic Ocean that is a perennial net food importer. In Cote d’Ivoire, which has been divided in two since a failed coup in September 2002, sowing of the 2004 main maize crop was underway in the government controlled south and centre of the country following the onset of the rains in March, GIEWS said. However, according to GIEWS, aggregate cereal output in 2003, estimated at 1.4 million tonnes, declined for a second successive year reflecting adverse weather, conflict-induced population displacement and inadequate availability of agricultural inputs. Improvement was noted, particularly in areas where the World Food Programme (WFP) and NGOs have access and supplementary programmes were in place, however food security for many households continued to be hampered by disruption of livelihoods, the report said. In particular, smallholder cash-crop producers were experiencing a significant loss of income due to restrictive marketing opportunities. In neighbouring Guinea, GIEWS noted that cereal output in 2003 - mostly rice - was estimated at an average level of 1 million tonnes, almost the same as the previous year's harvest. However, that remained below demand and in February the government agreed to sell 20,000 tonnes of rice direct to the public at controlled prices in a bid to halt alarming food price rises. Following the restoration of peace in Sierra Leone the number of refugees in Guinea had decreased, however, recent reports indicated that about 108,000 refugees still resided in seven camps in the country, GIEWS said. In Sierra Leone, the 2004 cereal crop, mostly rice, was currently being planted. GIEWS said that the cereal production for 2003 had been affected by adverse weather during the previous growing season and the output was estimated at some 408,000 tonnes, about 2 percent lower than the previous year. WFP was supporting countrywide, about 97,000 people through vulnerable group feeding programmes. Sierra Leone is also seeing its refugee population decrease as Liberians begin returning home following the signing of a peace deal last August. Back in Liberia, those returnees are planting crops again. Rice will be due for harvest in September and the GIEWS expect production in 2004 to recover from last year's drastically reduced level. However, reports indicate increasing food insecurity in the south-eastern county of River Gee which abuts Cote d’Ivoire. In contrast, record cereal harvest were reported in Benin, Togo and Nigeria. The GIEWS estimated that the Gulf of Guinea countries (Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria) had an aggregate cereal production of 30.6 million tonnes for 2003 – the same as 2002 but higher than the annual average. Record crops were also harvested in all the nine Sahelian countries except Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, GIEWS noted, adding that the good harvests translated into a substantial decline in cereal prices in the markets. The aggregate 2003 output of cereal in the nine Sahelian countries was estimated at a record 14.3 million tonnes, 25 percent higher than the above-average crop of 11.4 million tonnes harvested in 2002. For this year, GIEWS said that planting in these countries will start in June. The Sahelian countries include, Cape Verde, Chad, Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal. The total cereal import requirement of West Africa in the 2003/04 marketing year is estimated at 9.3 million tonnes, according to GIEWS. That is anticipated to breakdown into 8.7 million tonnes of commercial imports and the remaining 0.6 million tonnes provided by food aid, mainly wheat and rice. According to GIEWS, food aid pledges reported to it by the WFP as of the end of March, amounted to just over half of the total food aid needed - 308,900 tonnes. Of which, 110,000 tonnes have been delivered so far. Local purchases were strongly recommended to cover ongoing or planned food aid programmes or for replenishment of the national security stocks, GIEWS said. In Cape Verde, highlighted by GIEWS as one of the Sahelian countries which did not record a bumper harvest, GIEWS said that the 2003 production of maize, the only cereal grown on the island, was estimated to have sharply increased by 79 percent compared to the drought-affected crop in the previous year, but remained below average. It pointed out, however, that even in a normal year, domestic grain production covers only a small fraction of the country's cereal requirement, with balance imported. In Guinea-Bissau, GIEWS said that a large 2003 cereal output contributed to a stabilisation of staple food prices. A crop assessment by the Permanent Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS) last October recommended close monitoring of the food supply position of the people living in the chronically food-deficit areas along the border with Senegal, GIEWS said. WFP recently approved an emergency operation to support rural households affected by floods during the 2003 rainy season, GIEWS added.