Thousands of tonnes of food needed after locust invasion

Malian officials and relief agencies say 10,000 metric tonnes of grains must be dispatched within the next two weeks across the impoverished country, to almost one million people who have seen their livelihoods devoured by swarms of locusts. "It's emergency food aid for people who have lost their capacity to survive," Pablo Recalde, the World Food Programme (WFP) representative in Mali, told IRIN on Tuesday. "The impact of the crisis is likely to be more critical in Mali, which produces 80 percent of what it eats, than in countries like Mauritania which imports a lot," Recalde said. "But it's not a famine; it's an issue of food insecurity which is going to be managed." A weekend meeting of government officials, technical advisors, relief agencies and donor representatives recommended that Mali rush almost a third of its national food reserves to help feed 900,000 people by 15 November. Around 12 percent of Mali's 701 districts have been struck by the locust crisis and are suffering acute food shortages, a joint nationwide survey by the government and WFP found. The worst-hit area is around Mopti, a central city on the Niger river, which accounts for more than half of the districts needing food aid. The desert town of Timbuktu is also high up the list along with areas around Kayes in the west and the northern region of Segou. Delegates at the weekend meeting in Bamako said around 900 million CFA (US$ 1,750,000) would be needed to replace the 10,000 tonnes of food in the government's stocks. Mali was one of several West African countries that had to battle locusts this summer, but the winged insects have now begun migrating northwards towards their winter and spring breeding grounds in North Africa. "The blame for the poor crop performance can be laid at the door of the locust invasion and a poor rainy season," the government's point-woman for food security, Lansry Nana Haidara, said. Nearly 250,000 hectares have so far been treated with insecticide, but authorities estimate that over 700,000 hectares of land have been infested by locusts in the landlocked country. The Ministry of Agriculture has said it expects the insects to destroy about 441,000 tonnes of this year's grain harvest, which had otherwise been forecast at 3.1 million tonnes. However, agriculture ministry officials said privately in mid-September that they believed the locusts would reduce the harvest by nearly one million tonnes. In a recent tour of the country, President Amadou Toumani Toure reassured Malians that they would not have to endure a famine during the coming year because its grain belt in areas of the Niger valley controlled by the Office du Niger irrigation authority had so far been saved.