FAO highlights concern for pastoralists

The overall food outlook for Sudan this year was highly precarious and the purchasing power of pastoralists, in particular, had been seriously eroded, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported on Monday. In a special report from its Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS), now accessible on the internet, the agency said the latest estimate of the number of people in need of urgent food assistance, because of drought or conflict, or both, stood at 2.97 million. The situation was particularly acute for pastoralists, with the drought having caused a substantial increase in the market supply of livestock, depressing prices and thus household incomes. Lower cereal harvests in 1999 and 2000, and subsequent depletion of stocks, meant that prices remained well above average through 2000 and 2001, the GIEWS report stated. The terms of trade, or relative exchange value, of livestock vis-a-vis grain had “deteriorated sharply”, it said. For instance, in March 2001 the quantity of sorghum (a staple food) that could be bought through the local sale of a sheep was 300 percent down on March 2000. The terms of trade for goats vis-a-vis sorghum had declined by more than 200 percent in the same period, it added. In more general terms, with only a fraction of the appeal for international food assistance pledged so far and the lean season ahead (with the next harvest not due until October/November), the food security situation was likely to worsen in the coming months, according to the FAO. The populations most affected by the effects of last year’s drought were mainly located in greater Darfur and Kordofan, Bahr al-Ghazal, Bahr al-Jabal, Eastern Equatoria, Jonglei, Red Sea and Butanah Province in Al-Jazirah State. After anticipated commercial imports of about 1.2 million mt and food aid pledges amounting to 55,000 mt, there was still an uncovered gap of 157,000 mt, the FAO reported. [for the full GIEWS report, go to: http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/alertes/sptoc.htm]