Focus on food security

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said massive quantities of food still need to be delivered to the parts of Afghanistan expected to be cut off by snow within 20 days. A WFP official told IRIN on Tuesday that one metre of snow had already fallen on the Anjuman Pass, one of two supply routes into the Northern Alliance-held Panjshir Valley, northeastern Afghanistan, underlining the fact that the deadline for transporting food by road into the remoter parts of the country is rapidly approaching. "It is a massive logistics operation, and they are already battling against a lack of fuel, trucks and communication coupled with treacherous mountainous terrain in Afghanistan," a spokeswoman for WFP, Lindsey Davies, said. "We are working against the clock, and we cannot stop the onset of winter," she stressed. WFP needs to deliver 39,000 mt of food to the northeast, the central highlands and the Panjshir Valley, but has so far only managed to truck in 7,000 mt. The UN estimates that about six million vulnerable people inside Afghanistan are in desperate need of food aid. On Monday, the food agency dispatched 2,670 mt of food by road through various routes. Possibility of airdrops The food agency still has trucks entering the snow-affected area of the Anjuman Pass which have not been halted by the weather conditions. But that threat was looming, WFP officials said. "We are trying to increase the number of trucks going in from 1,000 to more than 1,500 into Afghanistan," Davies said. She added that trucks were also being brought in from Europe. "We had a batch from Sweden, and some have snowploughs, which will help us deliver food." Airdrops in Afghanistan are planned when routes to remote areas are closed due to snowfall, but this would be a last resort. "WFP is an expert in this field, and a model in itself. We have highly trained staff, and we would not drop food indiscriminately," Davies noted. Davies said food would be dropped in black snow-proof bags, keeping the contents dry and clearly visible. Aircraft and personnel were on a 48-hour standby, mainly from the Sudan operation, where the food agency has been making drops for the past 10 years. She added that there were many factors to be taken into account when dealing with airdrops, including US air clearance, making sure there were enough ground staff to receive the drops, and the logistical problems of mined areas. Internal delivery Another problem facing WFP is the actual food distribution operation inside Afghanistan, hampered due to the withdrawal of international aid workers, following 11 September. However, agency officials said there were still 140 WFP staff working with NGO partners. Concern over internal distribution has been echoed by international NGOs. Christian Aid and Islamic Relief have said they are deeply concerned about "the absence of effective delivery and distribution", according to a British Agencies Afghanistan Group report. WFP acknowledged that some areas in Afghanistan were not being covered by aid due to the security situation. "One area of concern is Badghis and Ghowr in western Afghanistan, where security is particularly bad, and there are no aid workers because of banditry and war," Khalid Mansour, the regional spokesman for WFP in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, told IRIN. He added that distributions in the western province of Herat were continuing as best as possible, as were those for bakeries in the capital, Kabul. The food agency is trying to reach a target of 52,000 mt of food deliveries per month and has so far reached 11,000 mt this month. Insecurity still poses problems to delivery of aid supplies, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which has expressed concern over the safe delivery of food aid into Afghanistan during the US-led air strikes targeting Taliban assets and terrorist training camps. "We need the freedom to operate unhindered," a spokesman for UNICEF-Afghanistan, Gordon Weiss, told IRIN. He added that although the US bombing had not affected the UNICEF operation, there was a general sense of insecurity. UNICEF, which is trucking in tents, clothes, family kits and water supplies, also stressed the importance of stepping up supplies before the winter sets in. UNICEF estimates 300,000 children die in Afghanistan every year from diseases which can be easily cured, and has warned that an additional 100,000 could die this year if urgently needed supplies did not reach them in time. Long term effects on farming community While agencies struggle to ensure that sufficient food is available for vulnerable Afghans in the next few weeks, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has warned that disruption to the winter planting season would have knock-on effects. "Our main worry is that 80 percent of cereal produce comes from this season, but we fear that farmers may not be planting due to a number of reasons, including the ongoing drought and the displacement due to the US-led air strikes," the FAO senior technical adviser for seed, Narendra Singh Tunwar, told IRIN. The winter planting season started in mid-October and ends usually in the first week of December, although it differs from region to region. Tunwar said there would be major problems of food supplies next year if the farmers were not planting now, adding that due to poor communications in Afghanistan, FAO had very little information as to how much land had been sown. There had been no reports of major rains so far, he added. Tunwar said that in some irrigated areas in northern Afghanistan, there would be some crop production to be harvested next June/July, and its quantity would depend on the amount of rainfall. He explained that it was also essential for the farmers to have good quality seed in the irrigated areas to ensure a good crop. FAO currently has 7,000 mt of good quality seed inside Afghanistan, but has pointed out that between 80,000 and 100,000 mt is needed to suffice for the whole farming community. In collaboration with WFP and NGOs, FAO has been running a food-for-seed programme for the past six years in Afghanistan. The initiative is aimed at ensuring enough return of seeds for following planting seasons. "We give farmers food in return for seeds, which they give to us from their crop. This way there is not a food shortage," Tunwar said, adding that this year WFP had allocated 10,000 mt of food for the project, one of the largest allocations ever.