Early crop prospects unfavourable - FAO

This year’s aggregate cereal production in Sudan was likely to be one-fifth down on the average of the previous five years, the FAO reported on Wednesday. Aggregate production in 2000/2001 (November/October) would come in at around 3.33 million mt, a drop of about 21 percent on the five-year average, the agency’s Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS) reported. With commercial imports likely to be about 1.2 million mt, about the same as last year, food assistance would be required to fill the estimated food import requirement of 1.4 million mt, it said. Meanwhile, prospects for the main season cereal crops in southern Sudan, for which planting is now under way, were “unfavourable”, the report said. In the first instance, the area planted had been reduced by continuous population movements associated with a recent upsurge in fighting in the civil war. This was coupled with late and insufficient rains, and more rainfall was needed in the coming weeks to avoid a further reduction in yield potential, it added. The purchasing power of large numbers of people, particularly pastoralists, had been seriously eroded by higher cereal prices and poorer terms of trade for livestock, the FAO stated. “With coping mechanisms stretched to the limit, farmers and other vulnerable groups have migrated in search of work and food. “Acute food shortages and severe malnutrition rates are on the rise”, and the situation was likely to worsen in the coming months with the ‘hungry season’ (until the next harvest in October/November) having just started, the report said. The latest estimates put the number of people in need of urgent food assistance in Sudan, as a result of drought or conflict (or both), at some 2.97 million, it added. [for the full FAO report on “Food supply situation and crop prospects in Sub-Saharan Africa”, go to: http://www.fao.org/WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/eaf/eaf0108/httoc.htm]