MALNUTRITION: KENYA: Fears of surplus maize harvest going to waste

Photo: Jane Some/IRIN
A surplus maize harvest has drastically reduced produce prices (file photo)

 29 October 2010  After poor harvests due to erratic rains that culminated in a drought in early 2009, most maize farmers in Kenya are enjoying better times due to enhanced March-May long rains. However, they are struggling to offload a surplus harvest of the key staple amid fears that short October to December rains could lead to heavy post-harvest losses.
The long rains maize harvest accounts for more than 80 percent of national output.
“We are not complaining about food security now as we have enough; production has been staggered because of the rains since November 2009. We have not had a distinct season, farmers are harvesting and planting simultaneously,” Muthoni Kirui, the Njoro district agricultural officer (DAO), told IRIN.
“Whatever stocks we have, we are estimating they can last us for a year but farmers will sell off about 50 percent of their produce.”
Njoro is in Kenya’s “grain basket” region of Rift Valley.
The sale of surplus maize to meet other needs is a problem. In the Lare Division of Njoro, for instance, a 90kg bag of maize is selling at only KSh700 (about US$9). “The farmers are not breaking even but selling at a loss,” she said.
“After the selling spree, the same food will come back for sale at a higher price,” Kirui noted, adding that middle men are to blame.
According to farmer Bernard Maina, this is inevitable, especially for farmers without alternative income.
“Even if we are told that education is free, there are other school expenses. The teachers may have been lenient with us during the 2009 drought but now they will make us pay; they will say now you have maize to sell,” said Maina.
“We are putting a lot of emphasis on our children’s education now since farming has become a vicious cycle. After every five years there is a big drought for two years. If my children cannot study they will just end up like me.”
Lare experienced total crop failure in 2009. To cope, farmers were forced to seek casual jobs in exchange for food in the neighbouring divisions of Mauche and Mau Narok. “Some women abandoned their husbands as there was no harvest, not even fodder for the cows. What kind of life is that?” asked Maina.
Storage challenges
The good harvests in 2010 have brought with them other challenges for Maina - proper harvesting and storage.
With the farmers reliant on the sun for maize drying, there are fears of inadequate drying, which could predispose the produce to aflatoxin contamination and other losses due to ongoing rains.
“There is a need for cheaper drying technologies because it is now raining most afternoons,” said DAO Kirui. “We are training them on preservation as they are bringing in rotten samples of maize.”
People still want to produce maize irrespective of market availability and weather suitability. On any farm opening up new land they will plant maize and beans
Most farmers have been forced to leave their ready maize crop un-harvested or harvested but stacked in the fields.
“Prospects for enhanced rainfall in the western sector of the country, including the ‘grain basket’, may disrupt or even delay harvesting of long rains maize. As a result, increased pre- and post-harvest losses may occur, somewhat compromising national output. Nevertheless, beneficial effects of enhanced rains in the western areas could be substantial as long as the rains are not excessive,” noted the Kenya Food Security Outlook for October to March 2011.
La Niña conditions are expected to have the converse effect in most of the rest of the country. This, warns the outlook, could increase food insecurity over the period for urban households, because of high food prices.
Bridging loans
To help farmers with surplus produce take advantage of the expected higher prices, the government has introduced a storage programme, whereby receipts issued for the maize enable farmers to access micro-loans.
However, most farmers have been slow in embracing it. The cost of the monthly storage fee, cost of transport and access is a problem.
Maina, for example, told IRIN he would not be storing his expected harvest of about 100 90kg bags of maize at the warehouses. “I will keep it in the house as that is my bank. If I need some money, I can easily take out a bag of maize and sell it and keep the rest until prices improve,” he said.
Another farmer, Joseph Kuria, has invested in a greenhouse for tomato production. He is also harvesting water and diversifying his crops. “Maize farming is not good for us. Before maize matures, it takes six months compared to faster-growing potatoes and cabbage. What you get when you sell maize compared to the growing period is not beneficial for farmers.”
The reluctance to adopt other drought-tolerant crops persists, Lare agriculture extension officer, James Mwangi, said. “Generally, people still want to produce maize irrespective of market availability and weather suitability. On any farm opening up new land they will plant maize and beans.”
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90919

BIOTERRORISM: Anthrax in Bangladesh

25 August 2010 (IRIN) - Health officials in Bangladesh are downplaying a recent outbreak of anthrax [http://www.who.int/csr/disease/Anthrax/en/index.html] in the two northern districts of Pabna and Sirajganj. "There is nothing to be worried about at the moment," Mahmudur Rahman, director of the country's Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), told IRIN on 25 August in Dhaka, citing government efforts to treat those infected, raise awareness and vaccinate cattle. "There is no scope for the outbreak to get worse," said M. K. Zaman Biswas, focal point for Communicable Diseases Surveillance for the World Health Organization, but there was no reason "to be concerned or panicky". According to the IEDCR, since the first case was reported on 19 August, 127 people have been infected with the potentially lethal anthrax bacterium that occurs naturally in the soil and commonly infects livestock which ingest or inhale its spores while grazing. The first human case occurred when a diseased cow was slaughtered and eaten by local residents in northern Bangladesh.

MALNUTRITION: Niger's markets are full yet famine shadows the dusty roads

The billboard propped up at the side of the dusty road offers what the land it stands on cannot provide : a sack of grain, the top prize in an advertising campaign sponsored by a mobile phone company.
Here in Niger, lottery winners win food. And looking beyond the signs along the sweltering route to Tillabéri– a region 18.5 miles (30km) from the capital, Niamey, on a road which stretches north into the Sahara desert and Timbuktu – it is not hard to see why.
Fields of stunted millet stand baking in the 35C heat, a land pocked by dry river beds, and the occasional carcass of a starving cow. This is a picture of hunger – one that is raising increasing concerns from international aid bodies and humanitarian organisations.
Nearly 12 million people in Niger – about 80% of the population – are now affected by food insecurity, a status that indicates they have as few as 10 days' food supplies remaining with all other income-generating activities exhausted.
Without urgent assistance, there are fears that many will starve.
The causes of the crisis are complex. Last year, exceptionally heavy rainfall destroyed crops and devastated this year's harvest. The resulting fall in production in staples like maize, millet and sorghum has affected much of West Africa's Sahel – fragile in the best of times – including neighbouring Chad and northern Nigeria.
But Niger is the country most greatly affected, in particular its children, 17% of whom are already malnourished, well above the 15% threshold for an emergency. Save the Children now estimates that as many as 400,000 children in Niger are facing starvation.
Aid agencies have been monitoring levels of food insecurity since 2005, when the last crisis was triggered by drought and locusts destroyed much of the previous year's food production.
But the extent of today's food crisis – and the deterioration of so many children's nutritional status in particular – has taken many by surprise.
"These are very high levels of child malnutrition, the situation is bad," said Gianluca Ferrera, deputy director for the UN world food programme (WFP) in Niger. "The loss in harvest last year was worse than expected, and the lean season started earlier than anticipated for a larger share of the population.
"In some areas, there is a 50% malnutrition rate for children under 2. Many of these children will not survive."
Fatoumata Soumana, disaster risk and emergency response adviser for the Niger branch of Plan, a non-governmental organisation, said the situation was getting worse. "In some areas, things are worse than in 2005." Plan invited the Guardian to Niger out of concern for the lack of media coverage of the crisis.
Along the route to Tillabéri, a large crowd has gathered at a busy clearing beside the road. Hundreds of people from local villages – teenage cattleherders, elderly farmers, nursing mothers and young children – jostle for space in the intense heat, forming separate queues for men and women that snake loosely around sacks of tightly packed corn.
The goal for those here is the allocation of 100kg rations for each seven people – the average size of a family in Niger. Talata Sourghakoy, an animated elderly woman sweating profusely under a long, black hijab which covers her traditional African cloth, has travelled from the nearby village of Sakoria and has been waiting all day.
"There are 15 people in my family, this will not be enough," she said. Despite her emaciated frame and the obvious severity of the situation facing her Sourghakoy jokes about the need for more food. Her smile reveals only a few bottom teeth, and prompts lively interruptions from other women standing nearby. As they move back and forth between the piles of corn and the donkeys lined up along the roadside, the women insist that the distribution is insufficient to protect their families from hunger.
It is not the first time they have received free food. In June a government report showed malnutrition levels in Niger had already passed the emergency threshold. Sourghakoy said food given out then ran out less than two weeks after she received it.
Like many villagers in the area, she has a field but last year it produced no harvest. She has survived by selling pepper and dried onions in the market – which earns her 50p a day. She now uses this to buy small portions of the crops which her family should have been able to grow.
"I have been feeding my family half portions – I make dinner and divide it in two, we eat the other half for breakfast. We are hungry. I pray to God that there will be food from the harvest this year. If there isn't, we will need more food distributions, or we will die."
The paradox of this year's worsening food shortage is the presence of plentiful quantities of food in many markets throughout the country. "There is a relatively good flow of food into the markets in Niger, yet prices remain extremely high," said Ferrera. "Since 2008 there has been a lot of speculation and tension in the markets. There has been good food production in neighbouring countries, yet prices are abnormally high."
The potential for high food prices to cause food insecurity and famine has been criticised in recent years. Speculation in agricultural commodities on the international financial markets since 2006 has been blamed for price increases of up to 300% for some basic foodstuffs, including rice and cereals, a phenomenon described by UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, as "silent mass murder".
"There is food in the markets but the purchasing power of the people is very weak," said Mahamadou Danda, Niger's prime minister. "Without assistance, the people cannot afford to buy it."
The willingness of the authorities to acknowledge the severity of the situation has surprised many aid workers. A military junta toppled the elected government in a coup in February, but is gradually receiving the backing of the international community amid the promise of elections early next year.
The authorities say they are doing their best to address the food crisis. "We are now dealing with two or three emergencies," said Colonel Abdoulkarim Goukoye, head of a high commission for food security and a member of the junta.
"Over the last week the first rains have caused heavy flooding. There are villages where everything has been completely destroyed."
"We are also facing problems of security in northern regions where teams cannot gather information and reach certain parts. In addition this is a nomadic population, which is constantly moving, making it hard to assess the needs."
Experts say the security situation – including armed rebellions in some oil and uranium rich areas of Niger, and the activity of groups linked to al-Qaida around the desert borders – have complicated efforts to distribute food.
Last week it emerged that Michel Germaneau, a 78-year-old French aid worker kidnapped near the border with Mali, was executed by the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb three months after his capture three months after his capture. "We are very concerned about the security situation in parts of Niger," said Ferrera. "It is a major handicap that prevents us from the proper monitoring of food insecurity."
But international organisations say that the immediate obstacle preventing them from meeting the urgent food needs of hundreds of thousands in Niger is a donor shortfall of over $100m.
"It has been very difficult to raise enough funds," said Ferrera. "There is a lot of donor fatigue [and] many countries are suffering austerity measures. Funding contributions are coming in slowly, but the window for buying food is now."
At the food queue on the road to Tillabéri, Ramatou, 19, heavily pregnant but painfully thin, waits for her rations.
"I don't know how this will be enough," she said. "I remember food problems when I was a child, but nothing like this. And now that I have my own children I don't know how we will cope. I am afraid a time will come when we will just have to go without food."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/01/niger-famine-food-crisis

MALNUTRITION: Animals need to be fed as well

DORI/OUAGADOUGOU, 13 May 2010 (IRIN) - Three men yank at the limbs and tail of an emaciated cow to put it into a cart. Animals arriving daily by truck in the Burkina capital Ouagadougou from all over the country are too weak to stand, much less walk. Erratic rains last year in Burkina, where animal husbandry is the main livelihood in many regions, resulted in widespread shortages of water and pasture. Aid workers and livestock farmers say the poor condition of local livestock - animals that have not already migrated in search of pasture - is hitting families' food security. The livestock families keep at home are critical sources of food and revenue. "The worry is for those [animals] that have stayed, given the lack of food and water for them," said Stéphane Degueurce of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Burkina, who recently travelled to affected areas in Burkina's north and Sahel regions. "It's a chain," he said. "The animals have nothing to eat so they don't produce and cannot be a source of revenue; so people have a tough time feeding the family but also their animals. And round it goes. Regression sets in and poverty deepens." WFP representative in Burkina Annalisa Conte said shoring up livestock will be critical for these communities. "If we want to safeguard these communities' food security, this year there must be assistance for the livestock that has stayed put. This way you're protecting these families' capital and you're ensuring that animals will produce milk. You could give food to the pastoralists, but they are still going to lose their capital - the animals. So where do you go from there to get things back on track?" Degueurce said: "One thing that struck us during the missions in March and April: Most people do not ask for food for themselves, for their families; they ask for food for their animals." Conte said the current situation points to a gap in the food insecurity response, which typically focuses on aid to people in the form of subsidized prices for staple foods, not necessarily to animals.