Millions in need of food aid despite improved harvest

Nearly seven million people in Sudan will need food aid in 2006 despite a reasonably good harvest of the 2005-2006 crop, United Nations agencies have reported. Those in need include more than two million internally displaced persons, about 900,000 returnees and an estimated 3.5 million vulnerable people in the Darfur region, southern Sudan and marginal areas in the central and eastern parts of the country, according to a report released on Friday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP). A crop and food supply assessment mission, carried out by the agencies late last year, revealed that Sudan's overall cereal production in 2005-2006 was about 5.3 million tonnes, a 55 percent increase over the 2004-2005 harvest and 17 percent higher than the average of the previous five years. Favourable rainfall over most of the country, low incidence of pests and diseases, improved security in southern Sudan and slightly improved security in Darfur at planting time last May resulted in an increased area of cultivation, according to the report. The total area of cultivated land across the country was 57 percent higher than the preceding year. "This is a heartening picture compared to previous years, and the people of Sudan need all the help they can get - particularly from nature. But many also need the help of the international community, especially in the troubled region of Darfur and in southern Sudan, which is just beginning to recover from more than 20 years of civil war," said WFP country director Ramiro Lopes da Silva. Despite the estimated above-average crop, the mission found that some 6.7 million people would require about 800,000 tonnes of targeted food assistance in 2006. Disparities in income distribution, problems of physical and financial access to food due to war, displacement, poor infrastructure, a weak marketing system and economic isolation are some of the main factors behind the food insecurity for millions of people in Sudan, the report said. The assessment also found that the timely provision of appropriate seeds and tools by FAO and other humanitarian agencies benefited a large number of needy farmers in 2005. A WFP road rehabilitation project in the south has increased trade, especially between Uganda and the state of Central Equatoria and between Kenya and the state of Eastern Equatoria, the report added. Attacks by rebels from the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army in southern and southeastern Sudan, however, continued to make it difficult for a return to normal life. Some key roads remain impassable, inhibiting large-scale trade. WFP plans to distribute 731,000 tonnes of food to more than six million people across Sudan in 2006, the report said. In addition to general food distribution, the agency would support recovery activities and therapeutic- and supplementary-feeding projects. FAO has appealed for US $40 million to support its agricultural relief and recovery activities throughout the country in 2006, which include the distribution of seeds, tools, fishing equipment and livestock medicines to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable families, particularly returnees and internally displaced people.