Harvests good but pockets of severe food shortages remain

Good harvests in Niger are fuelling hopes the country will avoid the disastrous food shortages of the past year, but the UN says about 13 percent of rural households still have dangerously low foodstocks and little to no means to fall back on. As Nigeriens struggle to bounce back from a food crisis that killed thousands and affected some 3.5 million people, government officials, aid and development organisations and donors are meeting this week in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to discuss how to stave off hunger in the Sahel region. “Everyone knows what must be done - we need to invest more in avoiding such crises,” Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, told reporters in Dakar on Monday. But any such move would require a long-term strategy, focused more on development, she said. The consultations will be the first time representatives of the development and humanitarian aid sectors come together in a bid to define and tackle the immediate and chronic causes of malnutrition in the region. The talks “aim to minimize future food security crises through promotion of regional sustainable poverty reduction,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a 10 November communique. A 2004 locust invasion coupled with drought triggered the emergency this year in Niger, and food shortages elsewhere in the region. But aid officials say that deeper long-term problems make families ultra-sensitive to the slightest disruptions in food supply. Poverty is at the root, Wahlstrom said. “In Niger, you had a very fragile system; when something happened to disrupt the system people went very quickly from chronic to acute malnutrition.” In preliminary results of a survey of 974 sample rural households, WFP concluded that 45 percent of families have borderline or adequate consumption and food reserves covering at least nine months, 22 percent have stocks for three to five months and their consumption is poor or borderline, and 20 percent are in a slightly better position with less debt and more means to generate income. The 13 percent seen as most at-risk have less than three months of cereal stocks, have sold most of their animals and have incurred huge debt. WFP said based on its survey - conducted from 15 September to 2 October - about 1.22 million of Niger’s 9.24 million rural population are in this most vulnerable category. Severe and moderate food insecurity is concentrated in the regions of Dosso and Tahoua with about half the households affected; Tillaberi and Agadez with about 33 percent; Maradi with 30 percent; and Diffa and Zinder with about 15 percent of families affected. Although food prices are dropping and livestock prices rising in Niger, many rural households will continue to face the fallout of last year’s damaged harvest for some time to come, OCHA said. During the food crisis families sold livestock - for many the sole source of income - and went into heavy debt, putting them at a huge disadvantage even with this year’s promising harvest. Seidou Bakari, head of Niger’s food crisis unit, says while the agricultural situation looks promising, the government remains on the alert. “Not everything has returned to normal yet,” he said. “Some families continue to face a critical situation. This is why we must remain vigilant and look at how to help these families.” Niger’s crisis prevention and management committee will meet next week to assess the population’s food security, including the results of a current tour by Agriculture Ministry officials, he told IRIN from the capital, Niamey. Yacouba Hama of the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems network, FEWS NET, said from Niamey that better agricultural production throughout the region will bolster Niger’s ability to recover. “One advantage right now is that Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria have had good production, so the pressure in the market will not be like last year,” he said. Food prices skyrocketed after the locusts and drought of the 2004 season, partly because merchants forecasting scarcity stockpiled grains rather than put them on the market. FEWS NET, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, WFP, CILSS, and the Niger government on 5 November completed a preliminary evaluation of the 2005 agricultural campaign, Hama said. Results are due out in the coming days.