Sahel
Excellent harvests, but some local shortages

afrol.com 16 May, based on IRIN -  Record cereal harvests for 1999 have been projected for nine arid West African countries, following a joint evaluation mission by the FAO and the Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS).
   Documents published after a regional meeting held in March evaluating food output in the Sahel puts the region's aggregate cereal production at 11.5 million mt, an increase of 8 percent over 1998. Six CILSS member countries had record harvests: Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. Niger's production remained close to its previous record of 1998 whereas Chad's is expected to have dropped by 9 percent in the same period. Guinea-Bissau produced less than in 1998 due to a military revolt.
   Millet accounted for 47 percent of the 1999 cereal production, sorghum 27 percent, rice 14 percent, maize 10 percent and others 2 percent. The cereal production in Sahelian countries has risen steadily over the past 15 years. However, in each of the nine countries, some areas recorded food shortfalls, due to floods which swept through the region last year.

Burkina Faso
Food security for consumers are assured as prices remain depressed in local markets because of adequate availability of fruits, vegetables, milk, meat and other products, the USAID says in its Famine Early Warning (FEWS) Bulletin.
   Even in cereal deficit provinces - such as Oudalan, Seno and Soum - food remains readily available as traders truck supplies from high production areas to meet demand. FEWS says available water for off-season gardening and fishing, as well as fodder for livestock, are providing rural homes with money to buy other food and non-food items. "Despite the overall positive food security situation, there are three provinces where households are highly food insecure and eight others where they are moderately food insecure," FEWS adds.

Chad
Harvests of recessional sorghum, know locally as berbere, in Chad's Sahelian zone has increased food in markets and kept prices low, FEWS says. These surpluses, it adds, are expected to meet shortfalls in the prefectures such as Batha, Ouaddai, Guera, Biltine and Sarth. Lake Chad's water level have neared record levels for 1999, it says, where fish catch stocks are expected to improve. The high water level and increased fish are also expected to help market gardeners earn more money to supplement household needs.
   However, some farmers have lost wheat fields after rising lake levels flooded their areas. Nevertheless, it says, quoting the Lake Chad Development Society (SODELAC), there has been increased sugar cane cultivation near the western part of the lake. Farmers in the country's southwest affected by floods or low cash crop prices, FEWS says, will need food aid during the hungry season. However, pastures and surface water for animals are abundant throughout most of the country for a second successive year.

Mali
For the second consecutive year, Mali's national early warning system has not recommended food aid deliveries but has said several districts must intensify cropping to avoid economic hardships, FEWS says. Some of these localities are the Bankass and Koro circles, in the region of Mopti, where crops were lost to flooding. Paradoxically, FEWS said, several other districts will experience economic difficulties due to two successive years of record cereal harvests.
   These gains, it said, had depressed local cereal prices - a position which has been sustained by the low demand for cereal by neighboring countries. "Farm household who normally depend on the sale of a part of their production to finance other basic needs," FEWS said, "have seen their revenue fall substantially." The concerned districts are Diema Circle (Kaye Region), Bankass and Koro Circles (Mopti Region), Macina and Segou Circles (Segou Region), and Dire Circle (Timbuktu). In Dire, the rice growing area of Timbuktu Region, "rice prices are so low some farmers are unable [to] cover production costs". Mali last experienced large surpluses in 1992-93.

Local food supply difficulties
Localized food supply difficulties are likely in several parts of the region as a result of floods and other ills, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in April. Contributory factors, it said, include severe flooding in northern Ghana, Nigeria, northern Senegal and southern Mauritania. FAO noted that food shortages also persisted in Sierra Leone, where instability continues to disrupt agricultural production in some areas. In Liberia, it said, production remains constrained due to the impact of a civil war that lasted throughout the 1990s.
   WFP on 10 May signed an agreement to distribute food to 252,000 flood victims in Chad. Some 252,000 Chadian flood victims and farmers suffering from a failed agricultural harvest during 1999/2000 will receive food aid from the World Food Programme, the UN body said. The relief aid will go to poor farmers in the prefectures of Mayo Kebby, Moyen Chari and Logone Oriental.
   The operation comes under a US $23-million-dollar emergency WFP food programme for populations suffering from food deficits in Chad, Mauritania and Senegal during the 1999-2000 agricultural season. WFP said its aid would discourage rural populations from selling their farm inputs, an action that would disrupt the next agricultural season.

Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000
Edited by afrol.com

© afrol.com. Texts and graphics may be reproduced freely, under the condition that their origin is clearly referred to, see Conditions.    You can contact us at mail@afrol.com