Leaders appeal for food aid following crop failure

Leaders in Somalia have urged the international community to help feed inhabitants of the southern region, where rain failure has led to the lowest cereal production in a decade and cattle dying for lack of water and pasture.

"I wish to appeal for emergency food aid. Any food that is sent to the Somali people reaches them," Hassan Muhammed Nur, popularly known as "Shatigudud", the minister for agriculture in Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), told IRIN on Friday.

According to the Food Security Analysis Unit for Somalia (FSAU), cereal production after the gu (long) rains from April to June in southern Somalia was the lowest in a decade at 73,000 tonnes, or 44 percent of the average yield during the years of instability that followed the collapse in 1991 of the Muhamad Siyad Barre regime.

"Both sorghum and maize production suffered significant losses due to a combination of below-normal and delayed rains, aggravated by flooding, high crop pest damages, and civil insecurity in some areas," noted FSAU, which is managed by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and funded by the European Union, the US Agency for International Development and various NGOs.

Insufficient rainfall thus far during the dyer (short rains) from October to December does not bode well for the region.

"Drought has had a devastating effect. Farmers, who are not known to move frequently, have been forced to migrate to towns," said Ahmed Mohammed Abdi, the TFG's deputy minister for minerals and water. "The rains didn't come and the situation is getting worse."

Shatigudud said the recently established TFG lacked the resources to help those affected by food shortages. "The government has no budget. It is being hindered by lack of finances," he said.

Isak Ali Mohamed, a 70-year-old farmer outside Wajid, said he had harvested nothing from his 80-square-metre farm, which was planted with papaya, spinach, tomatoes and other vegetables.

"The yield was zero," he said, adding that people had resorted to burning and selling charcoal to raise money for food.

According to FSAU, the livestock situation was also rapidly deteriorating in southern Somalia, especially in the agro-pastoral and pastoral areas of Gedo and Juba.

"Already cattle deaths are reported in the hinterland of Gedo and Juba regions - due to lack of pasture and water," FSAU said in its November report.

"Pasture and water sources were depleted early in the traditional grazing areas due to the below normal gu 2005 rains, which prompted early (May/June) movement of people and livestock towards the Juba riverine and coastal areas of Kismayo," the agency said.