More food available but cereals still needed

Food production in eastern Africa has improved this year, especially in Ethiopia and Sudan, but the situation in Eritrea, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania is still of particular concern, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in its first Africa report for 2004. The report, issued on 7 April, noted that more food was available in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, but 24 countries still faced food emergencies and the need for cereal imports remained high. Ethiopia produced a bumper harvest last year, but "about 7 million people require food assistance, while an additional 2.2 million will require close monitoring", the report said. Some 100,000 mt of food relief would be needed this year, and between 300,000 mt and 350,000 mt of maize, wheat and sorghum could be available for local purchase. In Sudan, a record cereal crop that was 46 percent above the average for the previous five years was produced in 2003/4, but the civil conflict in the western region of Darfur had displaced hundreds of thousands of people, curtailing their access to food, the report said. Many of the displaced had lost the bulk of their last harvest. Somalia had about 123,000 people facing a food security crisis, of whom 95,000 were in "a critical emergency situation" due to the cumulative effects of successive droughts, according to the report. Nearly 1.9 million people in Eritrea were estimated to be in need of food assistance. "There is cause for serious concern, because food assistance pledges have been low and food aid stocks are depleted. As a result both rations and the number of people receiving food assistance have been reduced," the report said. FAO estimated that nearly one million people would need help this year in Kenya. "Harvesting of the 2003/04 secondary cereal crop, which accounts for some 15 percent of annual production, is complete and is estimated to be slightly below average at 360,000 mt of maize […] the main source of food in the central and eastern provinces of Kenya," the report said. FAO added that reports of serious of food shortages had also been received from several regions of Tanzania, and in northern Uganda, where civil strife continued to claim the lives of many civilians. [For full report go to www.fao.org]