"Huge food gap" reported in north

Inadequate food distributions in northern Ethiopia have left more than a million people facing a “huge food gap”, a report warned on Monday. The joint report by the UN Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (EUE) and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said supplies to both the Amhara and Tigray regions were woefully short of the needs required. In Amhara some 1,325,000 people needed food aid, but only 7,000 mt is available for 560,000 people. In Tigray, a third of the 836,000 people in need of food aid have been sent supplies. Poor rains earlier in the year and a “massive” shift by farmers to short cycle crops will hit the overall production in the region, the report warned. It said many farmers in the region had switched from long cycle crops like sorghum and maize, to shorter cycle crops such as teff which resulted in a reduced harvest. “This will affect not only food availability for humans, but fodder for livestock,” the report said. It predicted that the poor production would also hit employment opportunities in the region which would have a greater knock-on effect on already desperate families. The report urged the government's emergency arm – the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) - to take action and try and “bridge the gap created in terms of the needy population and food aid provision”. [See EUE website]