Food access prospects excellent, FEWS says

Food access for most households in rural and urban areas is “excellent” on account of an “abundant rain fed and irrigated harvest,” USAID’s Famine and Early Warning System (FEWS) said in a 29 December report. Farmers are harvesting rain-fed millet and sorghum across Mali and irrigated rice in the key rice-growing areas of Segou and Mopti in the centre of the country. Other crops are being planted in the northern region of Kayes and in the agro-pastoral zones of Gao and Timbuktu, FEWS reported. Only three of the 173 districts covered by the Mali’s National Early Warning System are described as moderately food insecure. These are all in the Mopti region, where households lost most or all of their rice crop to flooding. FEWS said millet prices in November were 10 to 40 percent below the 1995-98 average, which should boost the purchasing power of the local population.