Seed assistance projects launched

WFP and FAO have jointly launched projects to assist families who were severely hit by drought in the last agricultural season. WFP expects to provide over 6,500 mt of food for more than 158,000 families, each of which will receive 15-30 days’ rations, including cereals, pulses and salt. This “will help ensure that people in food-insecure areas do not resort to eating their seeds in order to survive, thereby further reducing their future harvest,” a WFP news release said. This year’s needs have been amplified by a recent drought which severely damaged crops in several parts of the country. “Bean crops were particularly hard hit, resulting in a drastic seed shortage,” WFP said. FAO, for its part, has started distributing 1,300 mt of bean seed to some 130,000 farming families. Information received by IRIN from FAO’s emergency office in Nairobi indicated that while 15 provinces were targeted, 45 percent of the seeds will go to a single province, Kirundo. “Seed distribution to this area has the highest long-term pay-off for the entire population in the country,” the report noted.