Rains do not mean drought is over

Experts have indicated there may be some recovery in Eritrea's food production prospects, but stressed it is still too early to say whether the current heavy rains pounding parts of the country have brought an end to its devastating drought. In its latest report, the US government's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) said the start of the main June-September cropping season had been normal throughout most of the country, and livestock conditions had improved. However, this recovery depended on the continued good performance of the seasonal (kremti) rains, FEWS warned. The rains have been particularly heavy this year in the western breadbasket region of Gash Barka, and concern has been voiced that severe flooding means initial harvest hopes will have to be re-evaluated. Nick Maunder, FEWS representative for the Greater Horn region, told IRIN the impact and outlook would be known after November when the harvests have been collected. He noted that poor early rains in April-May had affected the performance of long cycle crops. Part of the recovery would depend on whether farmers could adapt by shifting to short cycle crops, he said. "But the situation is looking up and is more positive than last year," he added. He also stressed that the drought was only one factor affecting Eritrea's agricultural prospects. The country was still reeling from the lingering effects of the war with Ethiopia, population displacement and the general state of the economy. The outlook, therefore, would also depend on whether there was enough manpower in the fields, Maunder said. The FEWS report emphasised that more food aid would be needed before the November harvests. But the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that lack of funds means it has had to reduce the number of people it can feed. "WFP has only 62 percent of the food it requires to help all 900,000 people it has identified to be in need of drought relief," the agency said in a statement. Given this situation, WFP said it could only target 600,000 people. It added that a parallel operation to assist a further 500,000 vulnerable people - including malnourished children, displaced populations, returnees and schoolchildren - had only received 31 percent of its total needs. WFP spokeswoman Laura Melo stressed she was hopeful that the international community would respond and there would be no need to further reduce WFP operations in the country. "We hope that Eritrea is not neglected," she told IRIN. "The fact that the rains have come does not mean the drought is over. These are localised, heavy flood rains which may help the pastoralists but are not conducive to good agricultural production."