Interview with WFP regional food vulnerability expert

Close to 13 million people in six countries in Southern Africa are in need of food aid from now through to March next year, the worst humanitarian crisis the region has faced since the 1992 drought. Nicholas Haan, Regional Programme Advisor of the World Food Programme's (WFP) Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping unit, was WFP's technical coordinator in the inter-agency food assessment missions that detailed the extent of the emergency. He spoke to IRIN on the factors that have tipped the six countries - Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique - into crisis. QUESTION: There is a quantitative difference between the last great Southern African drought in 1992 that affected some 18 million people and the current food situation. But the current crisis has been described as a "complex emergency". What is the qualitative difference between the two emergencies? ANSWER: It is quantitatively different because the number of people who need food this year is not as great as those in 1992. But qualitatively [this year] is very different. 1992 was almost exclusively a drought-related emergency and a very long-term drought at that. This year it's complex. There are political factors - Zimbabwe stands out. The land reform programme has had a very strong effect on production levels. In Malawi, the sale of the strategic grain reserve definitely affected prices last year which affected farmers' ability to purchase food and therefore effects household food security. So there are these qualitative dimensions, and not to even mention HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is very different this year. There were very low values in 1992, now we are having prevalence rates in adult populations of around 25 percent, in some places even higher. So this has a direct effect on production and direct effects on accessibility. Many households by December normally depend on purchasing their food. That number is around 80 percent of poor households who depend on purchasing their food from December through March. Without income coming into their households [because of illness due to HIV/AIDS] - that might come from remittances from South Africa, from income from working on a neighbour's farm, from working on estates - without that income, the household cannot afford maize, it cannot afford food. So HIV/AIDS has direct effects. Plus the increased demands on caregivers' time is very critical. And it's particularly women and the elderly caregivers in the household. Because now they have to spend their time not only taking care of other household members, but also the production activities that they normally do. Q: Perhaps related to HIV/AIDS is also the problem of deep poverty - households in Malawi even in a good year cannot even cover all their needs. What has happened? A: In terms of production, poor households are not producing the food that they need for the whole year. That's why I mentioned that normal food stocks will take households up until around December and then they start purchasing. The question is whether or not they can afford it at that point. Yes, the macro-economic situation in all six of these countries [identified as facing crisis] is on a downward slide, and that has direct effects on not only the macro economy but trickle down effects on households. We see it in Malawi very, very clearly, with the average daily labour rate called "ganyu" - it refers to casual labour, a widespread and common means of getting income. That daily wage rate has not changed in five years, it's about 20 kwacha [US 27 cents] per day. But the inflation rate in Malawi has been outstanding [May 2001 it was 30 percent]. So you have this inflation rate, to which all the other prices get adjusted accordingly - fuel transport, maize prices, they're all directly linked. But the casual labour rate hasn't budged - its a precarious situation. Q: In terms of the interviews you made during the recent crop assessment missions, how did people perceive their situation? A: It depends on where the household gets their income. Farmers who depend on cash crops for export face very volatile global markets. Tobacco for example. This year the tobacco prices are down significantly, they are at 70 kwacha per kg - its about half of what it was last year. So that puts them in a very vulnerable position with regards to global market prices. The household income of 50 percent of Malawians is 15-20 kwacha per day, spread out across the year. And yet maize prices last year were reaching 30 kwacha per kg. A household of five people needs at least two kg, so that's 60 kwacha and you are making around 20 kwacha. But even that's a little misleading because 15-20 kwacha per day, the average daily household income, is spread out across the whole year. When households get cash crops they sell them and spend the money. Come December, come the hungry months - December, January, March - they don't have that money available. Again, what they're depending on at that time is ganyu - casual labour. If the agricultural season is poor, if the planting season is poor, it has direct effects on the current situation because if the planting season is poor, it means the labour opportunities which people are so reliant on are not there. Q: What about issues of affordability of food. Presumably if poverty is so entrenched, once this current emergency is over, the whole issue of subsidies needs to be looked at. Presumably, some kind of a safety net will be needed, and for how long? A: In 2000, there was no need for large scale food aid. So in a scenario where agricultural production is decent, it's not like the situation will always require assistance. We do have a situation where production is down, the issue is that national governments should have policies to accommodate, plan for, this kind of scenario. A food security policy in any country should be able to capture the needs of people in hard times. So the question is, are food crops promoted adequately in a country versus export crops? Are subsidies and distribution schemes in place that require a short amount of time to activate rather than a delayed response, which is what happened last year in Malawi. Those are elements of a food security strategy. Q: Malawi had a starter pack scheme [distributing small amounts of seeds and fertiliser to farmers], that has been replaced by targeted assistance. Are there any other countries in the region that have that kind of initiative? A: Not as robust as Malawi Q: The alarm has been raised now over the regional food crisis, is the humanitarian community in time to turn it around very quickly? A: Yes ... Q: You were saying that things could still go wrong this year which could increase numbers in need, could you elaborate on that? A: Absolutely. All of these countries have experienced stress years last year, Malawi was more pronounced - but all of them. Zambia did, Zimbabwe has quite a continual crisis, farmers in Swaziland were also harvesting green maize, and all of these situations received a tremendous amount of attention in March/April. But that's too late at that point, because the harvest was happening in April. So the crisis that many people [humanitarian workers] came out to see, if they got there in May, had largely been alleviated by the natural process of having a harvest. The situation we're in right now is a post harvest situation. By far, the majority of people do have some harvest - there were some who were actually devastated to the point they have nothing left - but the majority do have some harvest. The question is how long will those food stocks last? Most of those food stocks will take people through to at least September/October. Therefore, currently we came out of a bad situation, we have a current alleviation of that problem, but we foresee a very severe problem coming up in the future, especially starting around September and even more so in December. So to the question are we in time, the answer is yes. The humanitarian community already had programmes in place to assist people in the February/March/April period, we now have bridging EMOPs [Emergency Operations]. Prior to the results of the food assessments, we knew there was going to be a need, so we extended the assistance for this current period, so people are getting food in June. The question is, this is the question, the even more large scale response will have to start in September. We, WFP, do not have those resources right now because September needs will be high, and as I noted, many people's food stocks will have run out at that time. So to avert a crisis, resources need to be mobilised now. We're still in time, but any delay, or any changes to the assumptions we have made regarding winter harvesting, regarding government policies or several other factors, then the crisis will be much larger.