Arid north faces serious cereal shortage, say WFP and government

Northern Cameroon is facing a serious cereal shortage because of a poor rainy season, government officials and the World Food Programme have said. Spokesman Wagdi Othman said the Far North province, home to three million people and sandwiched between Nigeria and Chad, had recorded a 115,000 tons crop deficit in the last agricultural campaign and the situation was worse in the Logone-Chari district. "(There,) cereal production for the 2004-2005 season will cover only 36 percent of needs," he told IRIN on Thursday. In other districts in the region, between 60 and 70 percent of needs would be covered, he said. The WFP carried out a joint mission to the province, where millet, sorghum and maize are grown, at the beginning of the month along with officials from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the Cameroonian government. Cameroon's Agriculture Minister Clobert Tchatat told reporters on Wednesday that the country had a cereal deficit of 200,000 tonnes compared to last year and blamed drought, the encroaching Sahara desert and migratory birds. "The food situation in the Far North province in general is precarious," Minister Tchatat said, without giving any indication of the deficit in that region or how many people might be affected. The tropical Central African country is generally self-sufficient but the Far North, with its Sahel-type climate is sometimes hit by drought and requires cereal imports. The minister said that cereal prices in the province had sky-rocketed 20 percent between March 2004 and March 2005. WFP officials said in the district of Logone-Chari, prices had soared by as much as 50 percent. Tchatat said his ministry would keep a watchful eye on inflation and support the affected farmers with cereal seeds so that the 2005-6 season got off to a good start. He said the Cameroonian authorities had appealed to the international community for assistance. "A request has been sent to the WFP for urgent aid to the affected population," he said. "The FAO has also been contacted so that an independent consultant be dispatched to the region in the days ahead to evaluate the real food needs of the population."