Food crop shortage leaves hefty import requirement

Food production in Tanzania this year is likely to come in 420,000 mt or more short of requirements, largely as a result of poor rains during the 2000/2001 seasons, according to estimates released by the Strategic Grain Reserve (SGR) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security. The acting director of the SGR, John Mngodo, said that commercial traders could be expected to import some 240,000 mt and donors some 42,000 mt, leaving a shortfall in the region of 140,000 mt, the TOMRIC news agency reported in Dar es Salaam on Tuesday. The SGR had 47,225 mt of grains in reserve, and private traders about 95,000 mt, but the government should be prepared to buy over 100,000 mt for replenishment of the strategic reserve, it quoted Mngodo as saying.

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) last week included Tanzania - a low-income, food-deficit country - in a list of 17 sub-Saharan countries facing exceptional food emergencies, but said food production was about average and the food import requirement for 2001/2002 was estimated at 98 percent of average.

The outlook for the harvest was generally good but some regions were reported to have been affected by pests, including ‘quelea quelea’ birds (a type of weaver bird) and army worm, the FAO stated. Generally adequate rainfall had increased on-farm stocks, as well as access to food due to low prices, and the food security situation of pastoralists had also improved due to increased water and pasture, it added.

Meanwhile, renewed clashes have broken out between pastoralists and farmers in Morogoro Rural, west of the capital, Dar es Salaam, as a result of the destruction of harvested crops by cattle, the Tanzanian newspaper ‘Nipashe’ reported on Monday. Five Maasai tribesmen had been charged with inuring villagers in Mangae, Morogoro, after fighting broke out, the report said. Earlier this year, 30 people were reportedly killed when fighting broke out in Kilosa, also in Morogoro, between Maasai pastoralists and sedentary farmers, it added.

[for the full FAO report on the “Food Supply Situation and Crop Prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa”, go to: http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/eaf/eaftoc.htm]