Nearly two million face food insecurity despite good cereal harvest

Close to two million people in arid Niger could go hungry in 2006 despite a bumper cereal harvest this year, warned the government who blamed the problem on perennial food insecurity. Earlier this year, images of malnourished Nigerien babies were beamed across television screens around the world after locusts and drought in 2004 resulted in massive food deficits. But even though latest government figures indicate cereal surpluses to the tune of 21,000 tonnes of millet, sorghum and maize as well as a surplus of animal feed, nearly 2 million people in over 1000 villages could still go hungry next year. “Despite that surplus, 1, 810, 356 people in 1,017 villages are at risk of food crises either because of late planting, the early end of the rains or because of the deterioration of soil quality,” said Nigerien minister for animal resources, Abdoulaye Jina on Wednesday. Of the villages that could face difficulties, one third are in agro-pastoral regions, where semi-nomadic communities always struggle to produce enough to feed themselves, Jina said. Niger is the world’s poorest country, according to the UN’s Human Development Index. Rampant desertification and the highest birth rate in the world are just some of the factors making rural life more and more difficult year by year in this landlocked west African country. “Even in a good year there are regions that cannot feed themselves,” Daddy Dan Bakoye, head statistician in the ministry of agriculture told IRIN. The main problem now is that most families are indebted. People abandoned their farms in favour of taking cash wages elsewhere, or sold the only assets they had, their land or animals and food prices sky rocketed, said Bakoye. “If a typical worker paid three times the usual price for a 100 kilo sack of millet, he’s going to have to work three times over, to recoup that expense,” Bakoye said. Preliminary results of a recent survey by the World Food Programme, which is carrying out feeding operations in Niger, reinforced the government’s warning. According to their findings, 13 percent of the population – 1.22 million Nigeriens – will face severe food shortages in 2006. The WFP survey found that severe and moderate food insecurity is concentrated in the regions of Dosso and Tahoua with about half the households affected; Tillaberi and Agadez with about 33 percent; Maradi with 30 percent; and Diffa and Zinder with about 15 percent of families affected. WFP has appealed for immediate donations of US $8.3 million otherwise feeding operations could be interrupted as soon as December. Some US $20.3 million is needed to continue that emergency feeding operation through until March 2006.