POVERTY: KENYA: Conflict fears as wildfires destroy pasture, cause displacement

ISIOLO, 20 March 2012 (IRIN)
 Photo: Elzbieta Sekowska/Shutterstock
Wildfires have destroyed large tracts of grassland in northern Kenya

Wildfires have destroyed large tracts of grassland in northern Kenya, giving rise to fears of conflict between pastoralist communities amid an already serious food security crisis.
“In the areas we have managed to visit, the loss of vegetation is large, at least 20,000 hectares,” said an officer with the Kenya Forest service in the town of Wajir, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly. He said an overall assessment to establish the total level of destruction had yet to be conducted.
According to Mohamed Wako, an elder, tension is rising along the Isiolo, Garissa and Wajir borders with residents accusing each other of causing the fire.
A Wajir resident, Ibrahim Mohamed, said the fire is suspected to have been started by a cartel of traders who are hoping to secure aid agencies’ and government contracts to supply fodder in the region. A fortnight ago, residents of the Habaswein area of Wajir barricaded a road to prevent trucks ferrying hay, accusing the truck owners of being behind the inferno.
The districts of Wajir North, South and West are the most affected with the fire spreading to parts of neighbouring Isiolo. "The wildfire which broke out last month but was stopped, started again two weeks ago and burnt more areas we have not visited… Extensive rangeland has been affected,” the forest officer said.
"We have lost a number of livestock, mainly calves, weak and sick animals that were not able to move quickly,” Adan Dualle, a Wajir resident told IRIN, adding: “Two people burnt by the fire are still at Wajir District Hospital.”
Some herders have been forced to migrate further north towards Moyale with some crossing the border into Ethiopia. “We are already faced with a shortage of pasture. While we had enough just last month, I am afraid the situation will be worse if it fails to rain,” said Dualle.
At least 500 families from the Biyamadow, Dadachabulla and Sarif areas have been displaced and forced to move to neighbouring districts, he added. A further 150 families had also been forced to flee from Berami Villlage to the Bute and Buna areas, according to a Wajir North District resident, Hussein Nurow.

Food insecurity
The fire (cause unknown) is fast spreading in Isiolo’s Merti and Garbatulla areas, according to officials.
"We are unable to control the fire,” said Diba Golicha, chairman of the Rangelands Users Association in Merti. “The government should give us helicopters or planes to fight this fire. It’s spreading fast and getting close to Marsabit [north of Isiolo]. We also want this matter be investigated.”
The cause of the fire is being investigated and more resources being mobilized to ensure that it does not spread further and damage infrastructure, according to the upper eastern regional commissioner, Isaiah Nakoru.
The March-May long rains are forecast to be below-average and poorly distributed, meaning that further improvements in pastoral food security are not expected, according to the Famine Early Warning Systems (FEWS NET). Food security in the area had improved after good October-December 2011 short rains regenerated pasture, increasing household milk availability and incomes.
“The majority of households will remain in either the Stressed [consumption is reduced but minimally adequate] or Crisis [significant food consumption gaps with high or above usual acute malnutrition] phase of food insecurity through June 2012,” said FEWS NET.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report/95114/KENYA-Conflict-fears-as-wildfires-destroy-pasture-cause-displacement

POVERTY: CHAD: The Libya fallout

DAKAR, 29 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Craig Murphy/IOM : Migrants arriving in Chad (file photo)

 Chadian families are facing worsening food insecurity, becoming more indebted, and selling off personal possessions as they try to cope with the loss of remittances from relatives who have returned home from Libya.
Remittances, which half of the households in Chad's western and southwestern regions of Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal used to receive, are down by 57 percent, according to a survey by NGOs Oxfam and Action Against Hunger (ACF). Households on average were sent US$220 per month.
Most families in the two regions have reduced the number of meals they eat; 70 percent are eating less nutritious foods, while just under a third are resorting to wild foods such as leaves and berries.
One in five households interviewed had sold possessions to raise money; while most said they had taken out loans to get by.
At the same time, families are struggling to feed returning members: Some 43,000 migrants have returned in trucks from Libya to Chad over the past three months, according to Craig Murphy, operations officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM). In Bahr el Ghazal family size has increased by as many as 13 people, according to the Oxfam/ACF survey.
"These people are going home to zones which already experience food insecurity even when there is no `crisis', said Philippe Conraud, head of humanitarian operations at Oxfam in West Africa. "They need food, water - the basics, to get by."

Chronic hunger
People in the Sahel are chronically food insecure: In 2010 some 10 million people were at risk of hunger due to prolonged drought and poor harvests; almost one in five children were chronically malnourished, and 5 percent severely, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP).
A minority of families are looking to new income sources: begging, sending children out to work, travelling to other towns and cities in search of work, or harvesting their crops early, according to ACF and Oxfam.
Many returnees are determined to find any work they can. Seventeen-year-old Moussa, who just returned home to Faya, the largest city in northern Chad, after working on a farm in Libya, told IOM he would try to find work in a salt mine now that he is home.
Agencies - including IOM, the World Health Organization (WHO), WFP, UNICEF, and NGOs including Oxfam and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) - have been helping provide returnees with food, medicine and water at transit centres and in major destination towns such as Faya. Nutritional support, which is urgently needed, will soon be put in place, said WHO programme coordinator Thomas Karengera.

Measles
Many migrants arrived with measles, leading IRC, WHO and UNICEF to launch vaccination campaigns for children aged six months to 15 years. A national measles vaccination campaign will soon be launched to contain the spread of the disease. As of 19 June some 5,311 people had contracted the disease across 20 of Chad's 22 regions since the beginning of the year, with 63 deaths thus far, according to Chad's Health Ministry.
"We are vaccinating children as soon as they arrive at transit centres, so the disease should not spread further," Felix Léger, IRC Chad country director, told IRIN. Many migrants are arriving run-down, malnourished and dehydrated, he said, increasing their receptiveness to the disease.

Cash
Oxfam is considering cash distributions to vulnerable families but first needs to ascertain if traders have enough capacity to supply the markets.
Cash in fragile markets will not work. "We don't want to be in a situation where cash distributions cause prices to rise, so those without cash cannot afford the high prices. That could have a harmful impact," Conraud told IRIN. Only 46 percent of traders in Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal had over two months of stocks, according to their research.
Prices of some basic foods have risen: In Kanem's capital, Mao, imported wheat was 43 percent higher in April 2011 compared to April 2010; peanut oil was up by 44 percent, and rice 6 percent; millet prices had dropped.
It is still unclear how many Chadians are likely to return from Libya said IOM's Murphy, who estimates tens of thousands remain. The number of arrivals has declined in recent weeks, "but this could just be a lull," he said.

Persecution
Migrants who had recently arrived told IOM they are being driven out not only by ongoing fighting and instability but also the loss of employment and fear of being persecuted. Fighters from the Sahel were reportedly hired early on to support Col Gaddafi, leading to fears among migrants that they will be targeted.
Some migrants may plan to return to Libya as soon as fighting stops, said Murphy. This may be the reason why migrants were left stranded on the road by trucks in Zourake near the Niger border, he said.
Donors and aid agencies need to step up, warned Conraud. "If more migrants need to leave Libya, and arrive in the vulnerable Sahelian zone, then households' ability to get by will be seriously compromised. Very few actors from the international community are aware of this situation; everyone is looking at the Libyan side of the border, but more need to look at the Mali, Niger and Chad sides," he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93098

.Hedge funds 'grabbing land' in Africa

8 June 2011

 

Foreign firms are snapping up farming land in Africa, a new report says
Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says.
In a report, the Oakland Institute said hedge funds and other foreign firms had acquired large swathes of African land, often without proper contracts. It said the acquisitions had displaced millions of small farmers.
Foreign firms farm the land to consolidate their hold over global food markets, the report said. They also use land to "make room" for export commodities such as biofuels and cut flowers.
"This is creating insecurity in the global food system that could be a much bigger threat than terrorism," the report said.
The Oakland Institute said it released its findings after studying land deals in Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Mali and Mozambique.

'Risky manoeuvre'
It said hedge funds and other speculators had, in 2009 alone, bought or leased nearly 60m hectares of land in Africa - an area the size of France.
What is wrong with renting out African land?
"The same financial firms that drove us into a global recession by inflating the real estate bubble through risky financial manoeuvres are now doing the same with the world's food supply," the report said.
It added that some firms obtained land after deals with gullible traditional leaders or corrupt government officials.
"The research exposed investors who said it is easy to make a deal - that they could usually get what they wanted in exchange for giving a poor tribal chief a bottle of Johnnie Walker [whisky]," said Anuradha Mittal, executive director of the Oakland Institute.
"When these investors promise progress and jobs to local chiefs it sounds great, but they don't deliver."
The report said the contracts also gave investors a range of incentives, from unlimited water rights to tax waivers.
"No-one should believe that these investors are there to feed starving Africans.
"These deals only lead to dollars in the pockets of corrupt leaders and foreign investors," said Obang Metho of Solidarity Movement for New Ethiopia, a US-based campaign group.
However, not all companies named in the report accept that their motives are as suggested and they dismiss claims that their presence in Africa is harmful.
One company, EmVest Asset Management, strongly denied that it was involved in exploitative or illegal practices.
"There are no shady deals. We acquire all land in terms of legal tender," EmVest's Africa director Anthony Poorter told the BBC.
He said that in Mozambique the company's employees earned salaries 40% higher than the minimum wage.
The company was also involved in development projects such as the supply of clean water to rural communities.
"They are extremely happy with us," Mr Poorter said.

--------------------------------------------------------
In the field

Umaru Fofana : BBC African Service, Sierra Leone
When I visited Lungi-Lol in rural Sierra Leone I saw men hoeing thousands of hectares of farmland owned by Addax, a Swiss-based bio-energy company.
They are growing sugarcane to produce biofuels.
Campaigners say this contributes to food insecurity, but many people here welcome Addax's presence.
Francis Koroma, who works on the farm, says: "We thank God for Addax. I am gainfully employed and I receive about $70 (£46) a month. Before, I spent a whole year without getting $50."
Villagers are unaware of the controversy surrounding biofuels.
Abdulai Conteh , a local traditional leader, said: "Some people are doing business here but I have no idea what they are doing with our land. I see them growing sugarcane. That's all I know."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13688683

POVERTY: CONGO-SOUTH AFRICA: Land deals raise food security hopes

BRAZZAVILLE, 8 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Laudes Mbon/IRIN : Hardly hi-tech... but the hope is investors will improve farming methods by introducing mechanisation

 By handing over 80,000 hectares of untilled land to a few dozen South African farmers, authorities in the Republic of Congo are confident they will greatly improve domestic agricultural expertise and reduce the country's chronic dependence on food imports.
"In terms of nutrition, we are in a constant state of need," said Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Rigobert Maboundou. "This is why we are giving over these lands, to employ local labour and benefit from the South African expertise." He said it was essential to surrender the farmland to those who could invest in it.
"Congo has been waiting for an investment initiative like this, the creation of thousands of jobs. More than anything else, the country is expecting abundant food since the South African farmers will produce crops and raise livestock," said Minister of Land Affairs and Public Domain Pierre Mabiala.
The 40 farmers are leasing government-owned land for 30 years, with the provision to extend it for two terms. The farmlands include 63,000ha in Niari and 17,000ha in Bouenza, in the southwest.
There are 10 to 12 million hectares of land with agricultural potential in Congo, according to government data, but only 2 percent is farmed, mostly with rudimentary tools. "It's difficult to achieve food self-sufficiency like this," said Maboundou.
Wynand du Toit, vice-president of the Association of South African farmers who signed the deal, dismissed suggestions that it was really a covert land grab, with production aimed at the export market. "Our understanding with the government is that we are here to help the country's food production - we plan to set up an agricultural college and train local farmers," he said.
Our priority is to help produce enough to feed the country - we are not looking at exports for at least two or three years
"Our priority is to help produce enough to feed the country - we are not looking at exports for at least two or three years and then only if we produce a surplus which we cannot sell to the domestic market," he said. "If we do end up producing more than we can sell here then we might consider selling to neighbouring Gabon and the Central African Republic."
Du Toit said since not all of the land was arable, the farmers would receive about 1,000ha apiece. South African ambassador to the Congo, Genge Manelisi, said they would focus on raising livestock as well as rice and vegetables.
Congolese officials said the policy of granting land to investors was aimed not just at combating the food crisis, but also diversifying a national economy that was too dependent on oil, which contributes more than 80 percent of the state budget.

Concerns
Land concession agreements have proliferated across Africa and elsewhere, leading to concerns that the promised benefits for locals - especially jobs - are never realized, while potential environmental and political damages are undersold. A 2011 World Bank report studied the increasing number of land deals from the past two years and concluded that "the risks are often large".
"Case studies demonstrate that even some of the profitable projects do not generate satisfactory local benefits, while, of course, none of the unprofitable or non-cooperational ones do."
Du Toit said the farmers viewed the acquisition as a business venture, and a way of diversifying investments. "When Pick 'n Pay [a South African retailer] opens a shop in Nigeria, no one raises an eyebrow, why so many questions about us?" He said the South African farmers were borrowing "millions of dollars" from international banks to fund the project. "We are making a big investment - we are taking in big pieces of machinery," he said.
The farmers hope to begin growing maize in January 2012. Although there are no official production estimates, they plan to produce 30,000MT between June and July 2012, and grow staples such as rice, cassava and vegetables.

Food imports
The country relies heavily on imported food to feed its population. The Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that Congo spent 130 billion CFA (US$260 million) every year bringing in foodstuffs. In its 2010 report, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) described food insecurity in Congo as "serious", with 11.8 percent of children underweight, and about one in five Congolese undernourished.
However, at the beginning of the 1990s, 40 percent of Congolese were undernourished, it said.
The government announced plans to become food self-sufficient by the year 2000 in the 1980s, remembered Joseph Moutanda Kassao, president of a cooperative of 320 growers based in Brazzaville. "We did not get any of the results we hoped for," he said.
The government announced in 2010 that it would invest 40 billion CFA ($80 million) a year for four years in the agricultural sector.
Congo has also been testing a policy of creating farming villages north of Brazzaville, with the input of Israeli technicians. Opened in October 2010, the "experimental" farming village of Nkouo, which is 83km from the capital and cost 13 billion CFA ($26 million), is able to produce two million kilogrammes of manioc.
Critics of the new land concession say bringing in foreign farmers is not the way to address food insecurity in the country. "We don't actually need operators or farmers from elsewhere to nourish us. We have a clear problem: our authorities do not assist our own farmers as they should," complained Dieudonné Mingui, head of the NGO Initiatives for Development and Progress. "Farmers right here don't lack initiative, they lack the means to develop large projects," he said.
Despite these sentiments, the project has not encountered resistance from local growers, who say they want to benefit from the experience of the South Africans.
"South Africa is the continent's economic powerhouse. Its agriculture is strong, and powerful," said Kassao. "If the South African farmers are really coming to produce and sell all the produce on the local market, it's a good thing. But if they're coming for their own interests, it will be a shame."
"I think the project is just getting started," said Kassao. "Let's wait and see."
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92934

MALNUTRITION: Niger: World Bank to finance safety net for a million people

20/05/2011
The World Bank ’s Board approved today a new credit of US$70 million to implement a comprehensive social safety net system in Niger, where an estimated 60 percent of people lived below the poverty line in 2008 and over half the population lacks food security.
The funds will support about one million people over five years in a country hard hit by frequent drought and high food prices.
While Niger’s frequent food crises have so far been addressed mostly through short-term emergency assistance, the new safety net system will help poor and food-insecure people to access regular cash transfer and cash-for-work programs. It will focus on the five regions of Dosso, Maradi, Tahoua, Tillaberi and Zinder, where poverty is most concentrated and people are most vulnerable to food insecurity.
“An efficient safety net system is a solid investment for the future of Niger, where chronic malnutrition threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of children during frequent mid-year famines,” said Ousmane Diagana, World Bank Country Director for Niger. “When vulnerable households can access a system that protects them from shocks, human development indicators such as nutritional status and school enrollment are very likely to improve over time and Niger’s economy stands to gain from higher productivity.”
In 2006, chronic malnutrition as measured by stunting (low height-for-age) was estimated at 50 percent among children under five years of age, making Niger the second-worst affected country in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Through a small but regular cash transfer of about US$20 (10,000 FCFA) per month for 24 months, 80,000 households, each consisting of seven to eight people on average, will benefit from an increase in income over a period of five years. Payments will be made to women through designated payment agencies, mostly microfinance institutions and mobile phone companies, and are expected to significantly improve food consumption among registered households.
As a soft condition, those receiving cash will be required to attend training and sensitization sessions aimed at improving household health, nutrition, and sanitation practices. This dimension will be developed with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and implemented by non-governmental organizations.
Through cash-for-work programs in areas affected by temporary acute food insecurity, about 15,000 people will receive approximately 60 days of temporary work annually, for a total of 60,000 people over five years. Non-governmental organizations will be hired to supervise participants during the agricultural off-season in activities such as soil conservation, rehabilitation of small infrastructure, and sanitation projects. Wages will be set at about US$2.2 per day—slightly below the market wage—to discourage participation of better-off households and reach those who need temporary income support through cash for work.
“This project has been designed in collaboration with the government on the basis of years of World Bank -supported analysis of Niger’s particular challenges,” said Carlo del Ninno, Senior Economist with the World Bank ’s Africa Region. “This analysis suggests that cash transfers to poor people for at least 18 months have a positive impact; and that essential family practices campaigns do improve overall family health and children’s nutritional status.”
The new financing is in the form of a credit from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank ’s fund for the poorest, under standard IDA terms.
http://finchannel.com/news_flash/World/87427_World_Bank_to_finance_safety_net_for_a_million_people_in_Niger/

POVERTY: HORN OF AFRICA: Food insecurity grips region

NAIROBI, 18 May 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Jaspreet Kindra/IRIN
Aid agencies have expressed concern over severe food insecurity in the Horn of Africa (file photo)

The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance in the Horn of Africa could increase sharply in coming months due to below-average rainfall and high food and fuel prices, say aid workers.
Moreover, funding shortfalls, drought and conflict could further increase the number of people needing humanitarian aid in the region from an estimated 8.75 million people.
Peter Smerdon, spokesman for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) in Kenya, told IRIN on 18 May: "The total number of people in need of humanitarian assistance in the Horn is 8.75 million; some of them get food aid from governments and other aid organizations. At least six million people need food assistance from WFP but this number could increase if the current rains are poor or below average."
According to Smerdon, by early May, about halfway through the rainy season, rainfall was well below average in most of the Horn, ranging from 5 to 50 percent of normal rates, and well below forecasts.

Funding shortfalls
Of particular concern, he said, were areas of southern and southeastern Ethiopia.
"Amid growing concern about the impact of drought in the southern and southeastern pastoralist areas, many of WFP's food assistance activities in Ethiopia face significant funding shortfalls," Smerdon said.
The agency said it was assisting 4.3 million people in Ethiopia.
In Somalia, WFP faces a 70 percent shortfall from May through October and urgently needs contributions of US$53 million to feed one million people in accessible areas for the next six months.
In Kenya, Smerdon said, WFP has a 50 percent funding shortfall of $47 million needed to provide food aid for the next six months to 1.7 million people.
In an April food security report Kenya's Agriculture Ministry said the national stock of maize - the country's staple - is expected to be about 5.9 million 90kg bags by the end of July, adequately covering only 1.7 months beginning in August.
The April–September 2011 Food Security Outlook by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net) forecast that most households in the hard-hit pastoral areas would become extremely food insecure and many more livestock would die.
According to WFP, the Horn of Africa drought, which began with the failure of the short rains in December 2010, is the first since a two-year regional drought in 2007-2009 that saw the number of people needing humanitarian assistance in the region rise to more than 20 million.
Conflict could further increase the number of people requiring help. In early May, dozens of people were killed and others displaced when violence broke out on the Ethiopia-Kenya border between two communities over rising food prices.
The fighting between the Turkana community of Kenya and the Merille of Ethiopia, local media reported, reflected a broader pattern of inter-ethnic conflict resulting from food scarcity and persistent drought.
On 15 May, international NGO CARE called for more attention to severe food insecurity in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, saying almost eight million people in these countries needed emergency aid.
"Chronic vulnerability, poverty, social injustice and climate change are all responsible for recurring food insecurity in the Horn of Africa," Mohamed Khaled, CARE's regional emergency coordinator for East Africa, said in a statement. "On top of that, a significant increase in food and fuel prices has worsened the current situation.
"In Kenya, for example, the price of maize, a staple food, has increased over 27 percent during the last three months. Sufficient attention is needed now to prevent further loss of lives and livelihoods. At the same time, the underlying reasons need to be tackled to break the recurring cycles that have persisted in recent years."

 Photo: Jamal Osman/IRIN
Conflict could further increase the number of people requiring help (file photo)

Measures taken
Djibouti and Somalia have declared the drought situation a national disaster while the Ethiopian government revised its humanitarian requirements document in April 2011 to reflect the growing needs and mobilize a scale-up of humanitarian response.
Khaled said: "While governments of the affected countries have already started interventions, short- and long-term international assistance is needed to help address critical needs but also underlying structural causes and chronic vulnerabilities. What is needed is a set of interventions which strengthens people’s own resilience capacity and coping mechanisms to survive such severe conditions while at the same time responding to their current humanitarian needs and protecting their livelihoods. It is crucial that people can feed themselves through their own means instead of being dependent on food distributions."

Somalia
Somalia's situation is dire as conflict continues. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Food Security, Nutrition and Analysis Unit (FSNAU), some 2.4 million Somalis are in food crisis, representing 32 percent of the population.
The effects of the ongoing drought, deteriorating purchasing power, rampant conflict and limited humanitarian space continue to aggravate the situation in most parts of the country, FSNAU said in an April update.


Women walk from Bakara market past a bullet-ridden building in Mogadishu


http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92752

MALNUTRITION: MALAWI: New farming practices grow healthier children

EKWENDENI, 8 April 2011 (IRIN) -

 Photo: Kristy Siegfried/IRIN
Lyness Mhlanga is now able to grow enough food to feed her family

Ten years ago Joyce Mhoni, head of the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit at Ekwendeni Hospital in the Mzimba district of northern Malawi, would have been caring for up to 30 severely malnourished children at a time. Today, at the peak of the usually lean months between December and April, when farmers are waiting to harvest, the unit is empty, and in the whole of 2010 only 15 children were admitted, mostly from outside the hospital’s catchment area.
Mhoni credits the change to a room on the other side of the hospital, where a sign on the door reads, “Agricultural Office”. The connection between malnutrition and farming practices was made in 2000, when hospital staff, together with a Canadian researcher, interviewed the parents of children admitted to the nutrition unit.
They found that most of them were only growing maize on their small plots of land, and their children were eating little besides nsima - the local name for maize-meal porridge. Years of growing just one crop had also left the soil depleted and in need of more fertilizer than they could afford.
“We wanted a programme that would address food insecurity, malnutrition in under-fives, and soil fertility,” said Lizzie Shumba, project coordinator of the Soils, Food and Healthy Communities (SFHC) project, which started as a pilot scheme working with 83 farmers in 2000.
Drawing on research by agronomists, nutritionists and development experts, the project’s staff taught farmers how to grow different varieties of legumes such as soy beans, peanuts, and peas. They were encouraged to grow a deep-rooted variety of legume, such as pigeon pea, in the same field as a shallow-rooted variety like soy bean, a method known as inter-cropping.
Soy bean is high-yielding and a nutritious food source, while pigeon pea produces a large amount of leaves that can be dug into the soil to make an effective natural fertilizer. Having only one field to weed and maintain instead of two also reduces labour.

Changing lives
Enoch Chipetupetu joined the project in 2002. As chief of his village he had more land than most, but could only afford to grow maize on about half of it because of the high cost of fertilizer. He started tentatively by planting one or two varieties of legumes and had to wait two or three years before he started seeing results.

Photo: Kristy Siegfried/IRIN :  Enoch Chipetupetu with one of his fields inter-cropped with pigeon pea and groundnuts

After planting a mixture of pigeon pea and soy bean one year, he found he could grow a bumper crop of maize in the same field the following year, using little or no fertilizer.
Simply changing how and what he farmed has profoundly affected the lives of Chipetupetu and his family. He has doubled the land he cultivates, and grows enough to feed his family and sell the surplus.
The extra income has allowed the family to replace their old mud and thatch home with a larger, brick one, and pay the school fees of his six children. It has also completely changed their diet.
“Before, it was nsima, nsima, nsima,” Chipetupetu told IRIN. His wife had been advised by staff at the hospital to feed her children a healthier mixture of foods, but she had no idea how to prepare them.
Project staff started holding “recipe days” to teach participants how to turn the legumes into tasty meals and his wife now passes on seeds and recipes to her neighbours and relatives.
For others, joining the project has meant making it through the year without going hungry. Lyness Mhlanga, a widow who lives with her 12-year-old son and elderly mother on one hectare of land, started growing legumes in 2007.
Previously, she had struggled to grow enough maize to feed her children, and her son had become so malnourished that he had to be hospitalized. “Most of the time, I didn’t have money to buy fertilizer,” she said.
A national government programme that distributes subsidized fertilizer to needy farmers only provided Mhlanga with one or two 50kg bags a year, and this year she had to share one bag with a neighbour.
A successful maize crop requires about eight bags of fertilizer per hectare, at a cost of nearly 6,000 kwacha (US$39) per unsubsidized bag - a significant amount for a poor farmer.
Now, using the techniques the project taught her, such as incorporating crop residue into the soil, Mhlanga can get by with only one or two bags of fertilizer. With no one to help her in the fields, she cannot grow a surplus to sell, but harvests enough to ensure her family stays healthy.

Keys to success
Word has spread and every year more farmers ask to join the project. To be selected, “farmers have to have shown interest, be very food insecure, and we also target the HIV-affected households,” said Shumba.
The project now has 7,000 participants and has been able to add about 500 more every year because a seed multiplication programme distributes legume seeds to new farmers, who are then expected to return twice the quantity of seed when they harvest.
The selection and training of new farmers, as well as seed distribution and data collection, are all done by a group of volunteer farmers who make up the Farmer Research Team. “I think the project has been a success because of them,” said Shumba.
To expand the number of participants and lift them above subsistence, the farmers need to find markets for crops that are unfamiliar to most Malawians. “[They] think to be satisfied, they need to eat a big bowl of nsima and some relish,” said Mhoni of the Nutrition Rehabilitation Unit.
Shumba said some farmers had formed an association to search for markets for their legumes but they were struggling to find buyers. “They’re just selling locally to vendors for a low price,” she said.
At a recent annual Field Day, some project participants showed other farmers their fields and explained the inter-cropping method. Later they were invited to taste coffee made from roasted ground soy beans, fried soy meat, and bean fritters.
Joubert Soko, one of the farmers invited to the event, said it was the first time he had tried such foods. “Normally I eat nsima or rice; it’s really boring,” he told IRIN.
Soko said about three-quarters of the farmers in his community were already inter-cropping with legumes and he was keen to join them. “We still have malnutrition, but it’s going down because people in our area are trying this.”

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92425

MALNUTRITION: NIGER: Chasing food security

 Photo: Catherine-Lune Grayson/IRIN
illage chief and his sons tend to crops in Niger's Tahoua region (file photo)

NIAMEY, 29 March 2011 (IRIN) - Six months before the start of the 2009 rainy season the government of Niger was warned the rains would fail. In the drought that followed, more than half the population - 7.8 million people - faced food shortages. It was the third food crisis in seven years.
“It is part of my duties, and I gave a list of measures to the government to prepare for the drought, such as planting faster-yielding varieties of millet and sorghum (two of the main staples), but governments do not always listen to us,” said Prof Alhousseini Bretaudeau, executive secretary of the Permanent Interstates Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS), a scientific arm of the African Union.
“We have spent 30 years perfecting the science of predicting droughts, and developed tools to help countries prepare but few political leaders pay attention,” Bretaudeau told IRIN at a technical and scientific conference to brainstorm ways of getting the country out of chronic food and nutrition insecurity.
The Conférence Internationale sur la Sécurité Alimentaire et Nutritionnelle au Niger (CISAN) began on 28 March, hosted by a military-backed interim government that will give way to a newly elected civilian administration, headed by Mahamadou Issoufou, on 6 April. To many observers, CISAN represents a long-awaited attempt by Niger to get to grips with the food security issues that have plagued the country for decades.
“Better late than never - the conference was long overdue,” said Jean-Pierre Guengant, director of research at the France-based Institute of Research for Development (IRD), which gave the world Plumpy’nut, a peanut-based therapeutic food, and insecticide-treated mosquito nets.
Niger slipped into chronic food insecurity a long time ago, without any of the former governments noticing, said Guengant, who has spent a decade in the country.
Amongst those who singularly failed to address food issues was Mamadou Tandja, ousted by the military in February 2010. “He did not accept there was a food crisis [in 2010] because he did not trust what the NGOs were telling him - he thought they wanted to make money,” said the man behind the conference, Col Aboulkarim Goukoye, head of the Higher Authority of Food Security (HASA).
“The second reason was that he was a very proud man - he did not want to accept that there was a problem,” said Goukoye, who is also the interim military junta’s spokesperson.
“Under the previous regime words such as ‘food crisis’ and even ‘nutrition’ were taboo - we would have had to pack our bags and leave,” Simone Winneg, coordinator of Humedica, a German medical NGO, commented.
“When we came in power,” Goukoye said, “all the technical people in the agriculture department came to us and said: ’You are probably thinking of security issues, but we have a food crisis.” They turned to the international community for help. Mahamadou Danda, prime minister of the interim government, asked Goukoye to find out how the country could address the recurring food crises. In June 2010 HASA was set up and the idea of developing a food strategy was born. “It naturally led to the idea of a conference where we could consult with technicians and scientists to help develop this strategy,” Goukoye said.

Inclusiveness
Will the incoming regime follow through? Goukoye said he was trying to get at least 10 of the recently elected parliamentarians involved. “Our strategy is not going to be any particular government’s strategy but a Nigerien strategy.” Over the next few days, participants including technical experts from across the world will look at ways to ease access to food, reduce vulnerability and improve governance in food security.
Ibrahim Mayaki, head of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the African Union’s development agency, who served as prime minister of Niger from 1997 to 2000 and was asked to head the conference, said the process was as inclusive as possible, with all previous Nigerien regimes invited to participate.
Governance was a key issue in tackling food insecurity. Local authorities were in the frontline of government service delivery as “the first connection between the government and the people in the rural areas, where most of our people live” and could recognize and the first signs of food insecurity. Mayaki suggested empowering them to address the issue.
Previous regimes had not paid much heed to warnings by technical experts in the country. “This is the first time someone is paying attention,” said Prof Maxime Banoin, an agronomist and head of the scientific and technical committee organizing the conference, who noted that other experts had also presented explanations for why the country was grappling with food insecurity.

So what is wrong with Niger?
The northern two-thirds of Niger, the biggest country in West Africa, is desert, so the entire food requirement depends on the rainy season from May to September to grow crops in the south. “It is a scary thought, and often things go wrong with it [the rainy season],” said Humedica’s Winneg.
 Photo: Catherine-Lune Grayson/IRIN
Two-thirds of Niger is desert

In an analysis prepared for the conference, Banoin and IRD’s Guengant identified the structural causes of the recurring food crises: food production has not kept up with population growth, and rainfall has declined considerably since the 1960s.
“Niger has the world’s highest fertility rate, with an average of seven children per family, so the population has grown at 3.5 percent per year, while food production, at best, has grown at about 2.5 percent per year,” said Guengant. Niger has struggled with a structural deficit for the past 20 years.
Declining rainfall has exacerbated the problem. The areas that grow staples like sorghum and millet, which need a minimum of 400mm of rain per year, has shrunk from 25 percent of the country to 12 percent since the 1960s.
Sorghum yields have dropped from between 600kg and 800kg per hectare in the 1960s to between 200kg and 300kg per hectare, while millet production has remained stagnant at 400kg per hectare.
Besides the shrinking amount of rain, the low production has highlighted the inadequate support given to agriculture, researchers said. “We have to have a multisectoral approach to finding solutions,” Guengant noted.
Investment in biotechnology to improve yields, adequate inputs, agricultural infrastructure such as irrigation systems, and education to empower women in a society that encourages them to have more children, are some of the policy measures the government should take, said Banoin and Guengant.
Harnessing the Niger River system could potentially give Niger 330,000 hectares of irrigated agricultural land.
The country has one of the world’s lowest scores in educating girls,the world’s highest maternal mortality rate, and one of the highest infant mortality rates, which all highlight the low status of women in Niger, and the cause of the high fertility rate.
Only four out of 10 girls are enrolled in primary school, two out of 10 attend secondary school, and only three out of 100 make it into high school, according to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The social reasons for having large families are deep-seated. “If we have only two children, what if they both die? You need to have at least seven or eight so you still have some children - it is always good to have more children,” said Hadiza Halidou, a woman participating in the conference.
“Women’s education is very important - they are also the main producers of food, which men do not acknowledge,” said NEPAD’s Mayaki.

More money needed
Traditional donors like Europe and the US have been concentrating on their internal financial woes, so African governments had to become more proactive about mobilizing resources to invest in agriculture locally and regionally, Mayaki said.
The technical and scientific conference would be followed by a leaders’ conference, where the new food security strategy would be presented, said HASA’s Goukoye. Regional heads of state, traditional donors, and local and international NGOs would be invited to attend for feedback and investment opportunities.
Mayaki said Africa should consider tapping emerging economies like South Africa, Brazil, China, India and Russia for money. Goukoye commented: “The biggest problem in Africa is implementation and follow-up.”
So what would happen if the new regime did not consider food security a priority and reneged on measures to address it - would the military junta come back?
“Just for that?” Goukoye said. “But I don’t think governments will not act - food security is everyone’s problem now.”

Mothers walking home with supplementary rations for their under-two children in Niger's central region of Tahoua


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MALNUTRITION: Yemen: Protests and food insecurity

William Lambers — Published: Feb 21, 2011 at 1:04 pm

 
We have seen the news flooding in about protests against the President of Yemen. Whether this turns out to be another Egypt is anyone's guess, but it's past time to pay attention to Yemen.

Laura Kasinof reported this weekend on the protests and violence in the city of Taiz in Southern Yemen. Taiz is the capital of a governorate which carries the same name.
Labeled as food-insecure, Taiz is one of the areas of Yemen where malnutrition is high. People there struggle to access basic foods.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says, "acute malnutrition in children and women appears to be concentrated in five governorates: Al-Hodieda, Dhamar, Hajja, Ibb and Taiz together have 61.5 percent of all acutely malnourished children below the age of 5 and 57.7 percent of all acutely malnourished women between 15 and 49 years."
WFP is including Taiz, along with 13 other governorates, in an emergency safety net operation to provide some relief from hunger. A food ration will be delivered to families susceptible to shocks like high food prices. It's a form of stability for a family as it navigates the treacherous waters of poverty. About 1.8 million Yemenis will benefit.
But WFP is low on funding from the international community. This component of its operation needs $29 million—and quickly. Other aspects of the WFP mission in Yemen are also underfunded. This includes Food for Work to support agriculture and nutritional programs for women and children.
Food for Education is also short about $16 million in funding for 2011. This initiative would provide food rations at school for children to take home. When you add up the students and their families, you have over 900,000 Yemenis benefiting. This take-home ration program stimulates school attendance, which will improve literacy rates. Since there is no funding, this program continues to sit on the shelf.
The price of no Food for Education is staggering. After the program was suspended again last year, WFP's Georgia Warner said, "We're watching a drop-out rate of nearly 60% as families can no longer afford to keep their children...in school." The ration is the key to education.
There is also the ongoing need to provide aid to displaced victims of the conflict in northern Yemen.
If these programs remain without funding, it will put extra pressure on millions of Yemenis. And how much longer can that continue before the country is about to break? If the U.S. and other governments want to see a stable Yemen, they need to realize now that hunger and malnutrition breed chaos.

Visit the World Food Programme Yemen page.

 http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/protests-in-food-insecure-yemen/#ixzz1FrM69ONx

POVERTY: MADAGASCAR: Food insecurity tightens its hold

ANTANANARIVO, 3 February 2011 (IRIN) - In parts of Madagascar's drought-prone south people have resorted to eating cattle-feed, as successive years of crop failures and the current lean season give food insecurity a firmer grip on the region.
"For some time now people have been changing their eating habits, with many eating red cactus that is usually given to cattle, or tamarind mixed with water and earth," said Harinesy Rajeriharineranio, southern Madagascar coordinator for Actions Socio-Sanitaire et Organisation Secours (ASOS), an NGO focused on health and sanitation, based in the southeastern city of Fort Dauphin.
About 720,000 people are facing food insecurity after a third successive year of adverse weather and an increasing "decapitalization" - selling off livestock and possessions as a survival measure - of the rural economy in the south.
The World Food Programme (WFP) in Madagascar said drought had caused the widespread failure of maize crops in the southern regions of Atsimo Andrefana, Androy and Anosy to fail. The lean season, when the previous harvest has been consumed and the new crops are not yet ready, runs from October to about March.
"Through reports from local partners since the beginning of the lean season in October, we know people have already started adopting negative coping strategies such as eating their own seeds, and foodstuffs which are damaging to their health, and selling their goods... men [are] migrating from these areas, leaving women and children even more vulnerable," Krystyna Bednarska, WFP's country representative, told IRIN.
"Two consecutive years of crop failure might lead to a quick deterioration of the food insecurity situation in an area which is already extremely and historically vulnerable," she said.
There was a similar scenario in 2009, but the necessary implementation of large-scale emergency and nutritional interventions were not taken in time because of a lack of funding, Bednarska said.
In March 2009, current President Andry Rajoelina and elements of the army took power from former President Marc Ravalomanana, and international development aid rapidly dried up.

Southern poverty
Before Rajoelina assumed power, donor funding accounted for about 70 percent of government spending, but all ministries faced budget cuts of around this size in a revised budget in September 2010.
Traditionally, Madagascar's poorer and geographically isolated south has been relatively neglected by the political power base, mainly in the north, where the capital, Antananarivo, is located.
When you look out at the land it's very barren, there's very little grass and there's an occasional tree off in the distance. In fact, where there were riverbeds it's bone dry - there's just no water
Nearly 70 percent of Malagasy live below the poverty line, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), but the number of poor tends to rise the further south you go, where most people depend on subsistence farming.
John Uniack Davis, country director at CARE International, which works to reduce poverty, said anecdotal evidence from the affected regions was that cattle normally selling for US$250 in the post-harvest period were priced at $62.50 in the lean season, or were being bartered for 250kg of cassava, rather than the usual price of 450kg.
He told IRIN that decapitalization was being used as a coping strategy and "[households] are being stretched to the limit."
The Malagasy government's Early Warning System (SAP), which started monitoring food insecurity in the arid south in 1996, said 53 communes were food insecure in August 2010, compared to 45 in August 2009 and 31 in August 2008.
USAID's Madagascar Mission Director, Rudolph Thomas, told IRIN after a visit in October 2010 "When you look out at the land it's very barren, there's very little grass and there's an occasional tree off in the distance. In fact, where there were riverbeds it's bone dry - there's just no water."
Thomas said USAID's $90 million programme for 2010 - when there were "two cyclones, two droughts, a coup and a locust infestation" - was the biggest in 20 years, with a $3 million donation to the WFP emergency programme, and $2 million to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) for locust prevention.

Heavy rains
Late and unusually heavy rains in the south were predicted to continue, but this could hinder rather than help the region's food security situation, the representative of the National Office for Natural Disasters Preparedness (BNGRC), Louis De Gonzague Rakotonirainy, told IRIN.
Lundi Peyrol, head of local NGO Let's Develop Madagascar (Hiaraka Hampandroso) based in Ampanihy, in the southwest, said the area had experienced four days of continuous rain and feared another week would destroy any chance of a harvest.
"There's been very little harvesting apart from a bit of maize, and at the moment there is rain, but if this continues it could damage crops and we could have no harvest at all," he said.
"The roads are almost cut... we risk being cut off from Tulear [main port city on the southwestern coast], and prices of essential goods on the market could go up even further," he said. Basic commodities were already about 50 percent more expensive in the south than in other parts of Madagascar due to its isolation, lack of markets and transport costs.
ASOS coordinator Rajeriharineranio said heavy rains in the vicinity of Fort Dauphin had already affected transport links - "Instead of taking trucks two to three days to come from central cities with supplies, it is now taking a week."
In the affected areas 300,000 children younger than five were at risk of severe acute malnutrition if action was not taken, said Bruno Maes, UNICEF's country representative.
Around 90 percent of Madagascar's children did not have access to clean drinking water at home, and "Just over 50 percent of children are stunted as a result of chronic malnutrition," he said. "This rate is among the highest in the world - the situation is only worse in Afghanistan and Yemen."

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BANGLADESH: Growing interest in tobacco farming


 Photo: Universal Pops/Flickr: Tobacco crop

DHAKA, 26 January 2011 (IRIN) - Large groups of farmers in Bangladesh are switching from rice cultivation to tobacco farming, creating concerns about possible food shortages, according to the government and anti-tobacco lobbyists.
“Last year, I sold [US$1,969 worth of] tobacco, which is impossible if I grow food items,” said Shofi Mia, a tobacco farmer in Gorpara village, Manikgong District, 70km northwest of the capital, Dhaka.
For years, farmers have lamented the low prices they get for their crops. Cut off from markets because of poor infrastructure, they say they have become increasingly vulnerable to price-gouging from middlemen.
Falling profits have been blamed for farmers’ conversion to tobacco cultivation, according to Syed Mahbubul Alam, secretary of local NGO Bangladesh Anti-Tobacco Alliance (BATA).
Tobacco companies are recruiting farmers with free seeds, fertilizers, insecticides and “whatever we need for cultivation”, said farmer Mia from Gorpara.
Anti-tobacco activists said tobacco companies win over contractors with promises of profits which often do not materialize.
“Many farmers later understand that it is not [a] profitable business but they cannot leave it as they cannot repay the loans they have taken from the companies,” said BATA’s Alam.
Tobacco companies buy the crop, guaranteeing a steady demand and prices. “We do not have to be worried about the [sale] of the products as companies take this from our [farms],” said tobacco farmer Bablu Mia, from the same village.
Growth
Tobacco has been cultivated in Bangladesh since the 1970s.
Though researchers have little official data, they say tobacco cultivation has significantly expanded in recent years, with one local study estimating the growth at 68 percent from 2007 to 2009, with the current trend pointing even higher.
“As some parts of the world...ban tobacco cultivation, Bangladesh might be an attractive destination of international tobacco companies,” said Farida Akhter the executive director of Ubinig, a local NGO also fighting tobacco cultivation.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the total land used for tobacco cultivation in 2007-2008 was almost 30,000 hectares (ha), which yielded 40,248 tons.
While steadily growing, such production uses only a fraction of the country’s cultivable land (eight million ha), and is still minor compared to the 32 million tons of rice produced in the same year.
But official figures may not accurately capture the growing interest in tobacco farming, Aminul Islam Sujon, project coordinator of local NGO Work for Better Bangladesh, warned.
“The original figure is five times higher than the government figure,” he said.
Walking through Manikgong District, it was not hard to find recent converts. Habibur Rahman abandoned rice farming for tobacco two years ago, while it has been four years since Madar Mia made the switch.

Food insecurity
Activists and the government say the trend could worsen food insecurity and shortages, given limited cultivable land.
"If a large group of farmers [switch] to tobacco cultivation, it might affect food grain production in Bangladesh," C. Q. Mustaq Ahmed, secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture, told IRIN.
“The country will face a severe food crisis in the near future, if tobacco cultivation cannot be stopped immediately,” said Akhter, executive director of Ubinig.
“It is a simple equation. When farmers cultivate tobacco [December to March] this is the time for paddy and winter crop cultivation. So expanding tobacco cultivation… will certainly cause food insecurity problem[s],” she added.
“Arable land is on [the] decrease in Bangladesh. It will be a threat if the land is used for tobacco cultivation rather than the food cultivation,” said BATA’s Alam.
Bangladesh is losing 1 percent of arable land every year, in part due to erratic rains and land degradation, according to the UN World Food Programme.
The agency estimates 28 million people - 20 percent of the total population - are “ultra-poor” and face chronic food insecurity.

Switching back to rice
Akhter said Ubinig has helped 1,000 farmers nationwide switch from tobacco cultivation back to rice cultivation by giving seeds and other technical assistance.
“The government can have a similar programme. But, first, it should formulate a law to prohibit tobacco cultivation on farmland,” she said.
"We are trying to discourage farmers from cultivating tobacco. We are not supplying the fertilizer at a subsidized price for tobacco cultivation," said the Agriculture Ministry’s Ahmed.
"If the situation becomes alarming, we will take measures," he added.
There is still time to stave off further encroachment, as some farmers are still immune to the lure of tobacco, said Ubinig’s Akhter.
“Ultimately, it [tobacco farming] is not profitable as when we grow paddy and other crops, we do not have to buy food from markets. Though tobacco farmers earn a lot, they have to spend a lot buying food,” said rice farmer Boshir Ahmed.
 http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91718

POVERTY: SRI LANKA: Food security and livelihoods hit in flood-affected east

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN: A farmer holds a destroyed paddy plant

MANAMPITIYA, 24 January 2011 (IRIN) - Food security and livelihoods have been severely hit in Sri Lanka, specialists say, after heavy rains caused widespread flooding and drove hundreds of thousands from their homes, left 43 people dead, and damaged or destroyed close to 30,000 homes.
According to the UN, agricultural production is the main source of livelihood in the affected area and this season's rice harvest has been badly damaged, leading to increased food insecurity.
The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates about 500,000 residents are food-insecure.
In the worst affected districts of Ampara, Batticaloa, and Trincomalee in Eastern Province, heavy rains between 8 and 12 January left more than 101,171 hectares of paddy fields damaged, of which more than 81,000ha suffered moderate to severe damage, initial estimates suggest.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates a loss of about 450,000 tons or US$120 million.
"The potential loss has been calculated to be in the region of 15.5 percent," Calvin Piggott, FAO's senior northern recovery coordinator in Sri Lanka, told IRIN.
The flooding, some of the worst in 100 years, came just two months before fields were to be harvested for the Maha - the principal growing season in the island nation. More than 607,000ha are cultivated during this time, with over one-fifth of that in the four districts hit by the floods.

Fields destroyed
In some towns such as Manampitiya, along the border between Polonnaruwa and Batticaloa districts, hundreds of hectares were affected.
Here, water hyacinth - regarded as the world's worst water weed - was washed into the fields with the flood waters, covering 81ha of paddy land in one stretch, Manhina Banda, the government agriculture officer for the area, said.
"You can't do anything but wait for the weed to die. Taking it out will be a colossal expenditure," he said.
Elsewhere, when the paddy was under water for two to three days, the harvest was either destroyed or will be woefully low.
"The paddy can look fine, but if it was under water for over a day there will be no harvest," farmer Sarath Weerasinghe from Kirimitiya, an interior village in the Polonnaruwa district, explained.
Weerasinghe is typical of many small-time paddy cultivators in Sri Lanka who depend on rice as their primary source of income. He cultivated 1.2ha, spending around $600 per 0.4ha, and hoped to make about $1,000 per 0.4ha from the harvest.
Weerasinghe financed the cultivation from a small loan obtained from a local businessman. He has no insurance and no way of recouping his losses unless he receives direct assistance.

Livestock losses
But rice farmers are not the only ones reeling; other small crops have suffered losses, though estimates have yet to be finalized.
"There will be multiple effects felt right across the country," Seenithamby Manoharan, a senior rural development specialist with the World Bank Sri Lanka office, told IRIN, warning that in addition to the losses suffered by farmers, there were likely to be price rises when the harvest fell short of expectations.
Since the rains began at the end of 2010, the Economic Centre in central Dambulla, the country's main bulk vegetable distribution centre, has recorded price increases of more than 80 percent, the UN said.
Another area of heavy losses is likely to be livestock. In Verugal, a village in the Trincomalee District with 12,000 people, the loss of livestock was over 10,000, Ponnambalam Thanesveran, the divisional secretary for the village, said. So far no figures have been established for the total loss of livestock due to the flooding.
The FAO is conducting a detailed study of the flood damage, Piggott said, with initial assistance likely to begin in the next three weeks targeting the most vulnerable.
The government has held talks with the World Bank on how to assist the famers, but so far there has been no concrete assistance targeting the destroyed crops or livestock. In most areas, local officials were gathering information last week to be sent to government authorities in the capital Colombo.
"Something has to be done fast, some of these people have lost their only means of income," Thanesveran said.
On 20 January, the UN and its partners launched a $51 million appeal to assist more than one million people over the next six months. Of this, $22 million is designated for food security, agriculture and livelihoods.
The appeal is expected to be revised within the next month to reflect needs as the situation changes and assessments are made available.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91709

MALNUTRITION: Genetically modified crops are the key to human survival, says UK's chief scientistSir John Beddington

Robin McKie The Observer, Sunday 23 January 2011



A child walks inside a looted supermarket in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Photograph: Oswaldo Rivas/Reuters


Moves to block cultivation of genetically modified crops in the developing world can no longer be tolerated on ethical or moral grounds, the government's chief scientist, Sir John Beddington, has warned. He said the world faced "a perfect storm" of issues that could lead to widespread food shortages and public unrest over the next few decades. His warning comes in the wake of food riots in north Africa and rising global concern about mounting food prices.
"A number of very important factors are about to change our world," said Beddington, an expert in population biology. "Its population is rising by six million every month and will reach a total of around 9,000 million by 2050. At the same time, it is estimated that by 2030 more than 60% of the population will be living in cities and will no longer be involved in growing crops or raising domestic animals. And on top of that the world's population is getting more prosperous and able to pay for more food."
Beddington said these factors indicated that the world was going to need 40% more food, 30% more water and 50% more energy by the middle of the century – at a time when climate change was starting to have serious environmental impacts on the planet, flooding coastal plains, spreading deserts and raising temperatures. "We could cut down tropical rain forests and plant crops on the savannahs to grow more food, but that would leave us even more vulnerable to the impact of global warming and climate change. We needed these regions to help absorb carbon dioxide emissions, after all."
Beddington said humanity had to face the fact that every means to improve food production should now be employed, including widespread use of new biotechnological techniques in farming. He stressed that no harm should be inflicted on humans or the environment. His remarks were made in advance of publication tomorrow of a major report, "The Future of Food and Farming".
His office's report is a specific attempt to highlight moves that could halt devastation of the planet. Crucially, the report will be presented tomorrow not just to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), but also to the Department for International Development, which directs UK foreign aid. Beddington said he would present details of his office's report in Washington next month. He also hoped it would be debated at other events, including the G8 and G20 summits.
He emphasised the role of modern biotechnological techniques, including GM crops, in the future of global food production. "There will be no silver bullet, but it is very hard to see how it would be remotely sensible to justify not using new technologies such as GM. Just look at the problems that the world faces: water shortages and salination of existing water supplies, for example. GM crops should be able to deal with that."
Such remarks will enrage many environmental groups, who believe it is wrong for the west to impose a technology it has developed on the third world. But Beddington was adamant about the benefits of GM crop technology. "Around 30% of food is lost before it can be harvested because it is eaten by pests that we never learnt how to control. We cannot afford that kind of loss to continue. GM should be able to solve that problem by creating pest-resistant strains, for example. Of course, we will have to make sure these crops are properly tested; that they work; that they don't harm people; and that they don't harm the environment."
GM crops alone would not be sufficient to hold off widespread starvation, he added. No single approach would guarantee food security for humanity for the rest of the century. A widespread approach, including the development of proper sustainability, protecting fish stocks and changes to patterns of consumption, was also critical, he said. "This report was set up to find out if we can feed nine billion people sustainably, healthily and equitably. We can, but it will take many different approaches to crack the problem."
Timing was crucial. "In 2008 food prices rocketed to their highest level for decades. People said it was just a one-off, but last year what happened? Wheat prices saw their fastest ever increase. The era of declining food prices is over and we have to face that," he added.
Almost a billion people now suffer serious food shortages and face starvation. "It is unimaginable that in the next 10 to 20 years that there will not be a worsening of that problem unless we take action now, and we have to include the widest possible range of solutions."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/23/gm-foods-world-population-crisis

POVERTY: NEPAL: “Dismal” irrigation system worsens crop shortages

  Photo: Suman K. Shakya/ENPHO 
Even in irrigated parts of Nepal's traditionally fertile Terai region, access to water is problematic

KATHMANDU, 7 January 2011 (IRIN) - The government of Nepal needs to improve irrigation management to achieve higher agricultural productivity and overcome “dismal” water and crop shortages, experts say.
Most of the country’s 1.2 million hectares (ha) of irrigated land is in the fertile Terai (southern Nepal) or other easily accessible areas, but very little in the hill regions of the food-insecure far and mid-west.
According to UN World Food Programme (WFP), the 600,000 people living in the far and mid-west regions at the base of the Himalayan mountains - also referred to as the hills - have the most problems growing and accessing enough food to survive.
Food security is increasingly problematic even in the fertile irrigated districts of the Terai, including Saptari and Siraha, where paddy production was reduced by half due to late rains in 2010, according to a yet-to-be-published report by WFP.
Just because there is irrigation does not mean it works, according to FMIS-Promotion Trust, a local NGO that works with centuries-old farmer-managed irrigation systems (FMIS).

Farmer managed irrigation
FMIS mostly uses traditional canals made of wood, boulders, shrubs and logs, whereas government constructed systems are concrete, and include tube wells, shallow wells and groundwater.
Because of neglect and lack of maintenance, only two-thirds of the nation’s entire irrigation network works during the monsoon season and only one third of the land is irrigated year-round.
To adapt to changing rain patterns and longstanding food problems in remote mountainous areas, the government needs to give more support to FMIS, said Pradhan.
“There is clear evidence that there has been higher agricultural productivity through FMIS than the irrigation system managed by the government,” she said.
She explained how, in FMIS, farmers take responsibility for water acquisition, allocation, distribution and overall management on a continuous basis - but lack critical government financial backing, especially to operate in difficult terrain.
So far, 1.2 million ha of the country’s irrigable land has watering systems, out of which FMIS covers 70 percent, with the rest government-managed, according to the Ministry of Irrigation.
Until the 1970s, Nepal was as a food exporting nation, but in the past decade it has become a net food importing country, producing less than 2.5 tons of grain per hectare annually, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
But the country could boost cereal production six-fold with better irrigation systems, said Pradhan.
Rapid population growth and migration put a squeeze on the region’s food supply. Until the 1970s, two-thirds of the population lived in the hills and one-third in the Terai, but low agricultural productivity in the hill regions encouraged more people to move to the Terai.

Revamp?
Since almost all of the country’s arable land is under cultivation and there have been few technological improvements for Nepal’s rain-fed crops, the best solution is irrigated agriculture, according to the government’s Irrigation Management Division (IRM).
“We cannot say that the poor irrigation system alone is to be blamed for food insecurity but it does play a major role,” Uttam Raj Timilsina, IRM’s deputy director general, told IRIN.
The government is conducting surveys to start inter-basin river projects to boost irrigation management, said Timilsina.
The hope is these projects can transfer water from big rivers (Bheri, Kali, Trishuli, Koshi) to tributaries in the country’s interior to ensure year-round irrigation, working towards a 10-year government strategy of revamping irrigation
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91556

MALNUTRITION: UN (OCHA): ZIMBABWE: Not enough progress to do without aid

9 December 2010 (IRIN) -
An appeal for US$415 million in humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe in 2011 has been made by the government and humanitarian organizations.
The humanitarian situation has improved in the last two years, but there were still "significant needs", the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in the capital, Harare, where the 2011 Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) was launched.
"One in every three children in Zimbabwe is chronically malnourished, and malnutrition contributes to nearly 12,000 child deaths every year. An estimated 1.7 million Zimbabweans will face severe food insecurity during the peak hunger season from January to March 2011," OCHA said in a statement.
Urban farming has increasingly become a feature in cities and reflects the fragile nature of the country's food security, which reached its zenith in March 2009 when nearly 7 million people - almost two-thirds of the population - were receiving food assistance.
"Our hope is that if we get enough rains this year and part of next year [2011], then, through this urban agriculture that we practice, we may fend for our families,” said Sarudzayi Shoko, a domestic worker who has planted maize, the staple food, on vacant land in Harare's middle-class suburb of Belvedere.
“Unfortunately, we are almost at the end of the year and very little rains have fallen, and that is a cause for concern," Shoko told IRIN.
Unfortunately, we are almost at the end of the year and very little rains have fallen, and that is a cause for concern
The national food requirement is about 1.7 million tons, but only around 1.35 million tons was harvested in 2009/10.
The 1.8 million hectares planted to maize in 2009/10 represented a 20 percent increase from the previous year, but the greater amount of land under cultivation was not mirrored in the harvest, which only increased seven percent from the previous year.
In 2000, President Robert Mugabe launched the fast-track land reform programme, which redistributed more than 4,000 white commercial farms to landless blacks, and set in motion a decade-long economic malaise from which the country has struggled to recover.
"Whilst there has been an improvement in agricultural production over the last two seasons, the sector still faces many challenges and farmers will require input support," OCHA noted.
"In addition, although the scale of cholera has significantly reduced, localized outbreaks continued to be experienced due to the poor state of the health, and water sanitation and hygiene sectors. A third of rural Zimbabweans still lack access to safe water," OCHA said.

Bureaucratic blunders
A cholera epidemic that began in August 2008 and lasted for a year before it was officially declared at an end in July 2009 caused the deaths of more than 4,000 people and infected nearly 100,000 others.
Ignatius Chombo, minister of local government, rural and urban planning, said food production could also be affected by bureaucratic inefficiencies, after it was "discovered" that rural farmers in the southwestern provinces of Matabeleland North and Matabeleland South had failed to collect farming inputs worth an estimated US$30 million, set aside to benefit disadvantaged rural families.
Distribution of the inputs, which include seed and fertilizer, is the responsibility of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), a parastatal organization.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91334

POVERTY: How can Africa grow more food?

Madeleine Bunting 3 December 2010
 
How can Africa grow more food?
Rising food prices are focusing minds on Africa's agricultural output, and on whether or not technology is the best way to boost production


 Photograph: Howard Burditt/Reuters: Food production in Africa is 10% lower than it was in 1960.

African agriculture has become the focus of extraordinary attention and interest. Yesterday a big report was launched by the Harvard academic Calestous Juma with the backing of several African presidents, and next week Chatham House in London is hosting a major conference on food security where the International Fund for Agriculture and Development (Ifad) is launching a new report on rural poverty.

Meanwhile Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, warned that the current UN climate summit in Cancun needs to launch a "Green Marshall Plan for Agriculture" or risk a possible 40% increase in emissions by 2030 if current agricultural methods are extended.
Rising food prices and terrible future scenarios of the impact of climate change on food production, are focusing minds on what is perceived as Africa's huge untapped potential for agriculture. This week yet another report from the International Food Policy Research Institute warns that climate change could push prices up by 130%, and calls for unprecedented human ingenuity to meet the challenge of feeding a burgeoning population.

Some of this renewed interest from around the world is self interest; countries eyeing Africa as a source of food, which is prompting an unprecedented rush to buy or lease land. But the foreign interest is matched by that of many African countries keenly aware that improving agricultural productivity is key to entrenched problems of poverty – on average 64% of Africans depend on agriculture for their income – and hunger.

Central to all the discussion is the assertion that Africa could produce far more food than it currently does. In contrast with Asia, which has seen huge increases in agricultural yields in the last 40 years, sub-Saharan Africa's track record has been abysmal. Food production is actually 10% lower today than in 1960, yet over this time period the aggregate world food production has increased by 145%.

The reasons are not hard to find. The use of fertiliser is strikingly low – only 13kg per hectare in sub-Saharan Africa compared with a north African average of 71kg. Only 24% of cereal is using improved seeds compared with 85% in east Asia. The lack of investment in nutrients has led to a catastrophic depletion of soils; 75% of farmland in sub-Saharan Africa has been degraded by overuse. As soil fertility has fallen, farmers have expanded into forests to maintain incomes, leading to deforestation – which in turn leads to more problems, for example with soil erosion such as I saw in my visit to Mali recently.

But if there is widespread agreement on the causes of the problem, there is an extraordinarily polarised debate about the best strategy to tackle the problem. On one side there is a powerful lobby which argues that biotechnology, massive investment in irrigation and mechanisation are the way forward, and on the other side are those who argue that these kinds of investments are usually tied up in big corporate deals in which local smallholder subsistence farmers lose out – either they lose their land or access to water, and often both.

Juma and his prestigious panel of international experts have attempted to pick a politically feasible path between these two positions. His report, A New Harvest, is being launched with the backing a clutch of presidents, including those of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

Inevitably, his enthusiasm for biotechnology will trigger anxieties among that alliance of European and African activists who believe that this entails Faustian pacts with multinational corporations. Another constituency will also be doubtful on the grounds that this kind of emphasis on biotech and science as the way forward in Africa lacks understanding of how development is largely a political process and crucially depends on the effectiveness of institutions – it is a weakness of westerners to believe that clever technology can sort any problem out.

One old hand in the field told me the other day that, on average, it takes 46 years for agricultural innovations to get from the laboratory to widespread use in the field in Africa; it's not lack of technology that is the problem but effective means to disseminate practical solutions. Technology might be able to achieve quick fixes in health on the continent, but they might be elusive in agriculture because it entails much more complex issues of land rights and power.

But what will delight these very critics is Juma's championing of the smallholder farmer – not as an encumbrance to development but as central to its achievement. At the very beginning – the first page of chapter one – he throws his weight behind the example of Malawi, which in 2005 defied USAid (and initially the World Bank) to put major investment into subsidised fertiliser and improved seeds in an attempt to boost maize production. Yields doubled and Malawi was meeting domestic need and exporting surplus maize within a year. Malawi became a poster-girl for western NGOs because it successfully challenged the best part of two decades of a consensus on aid in Africa – namely that the state should not subsidise smallholder agriculture.

The second example Juma chooses to highlight is even more striking. He argues that China's dramatic reduction of poverty has been achieved by growth primarily in the agricultural sector, not the industrial. Since the late 1970s, improvements in technology and infrastructure helped boost production in smallholder agriculture, with farmers' incomes rising at more than 7% a year. The result is that 200 million small-scale farmers working an average of 0.6 hectare of land are now feeding a population of 1.3 billion.

China offers a fascinating model for Africa that is radically different from the western model of high-investment, export-orientated agriculture – the carnations from Kenya model. The key to China's success, argues Juma, is "a strong, competent, developmental state". Unfortunately, that is what has often been lacking in sub-Saharan Africa. And to be fair, the desperate state of African agriculture is also a product of a history of structural adjustment programmes, which insisted on cutting back the role of the state in funding research and agricultural extension services of many countries.

This report clearly draws a line under that history of neglect. But the question is whether it can really mobilise the kind of investment it believes is urgently needed. The political rhetoric surrounding its launch is warm, but a note of caution. We have been here before: the Maputo declaration of 2003 pledged African countries to 10% of government spending for agriculture. Seven years on, many countries have not even reached 4%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/dec/03/africa-agriculture-food-boost-production

POVERTY: Hungry Africa needs to focus on agriculture

Calestous Juma, a development scientist, says Africa can turn around by improving roads and transportation, training engineers and using irrigation, solar energy and more technology.


The problem: African hunger.
In a nutshell, 250 million Africans are undernourished, a quarter of the population and an increase of 100 million in the last 20 years. Yet 70% of Africans are farmers growing food.

The hope:
Within one generation, Africa will grow enough to feed itself.

But how?
According to Calestous Juma, a Harvard professor and Kenyan development scientist, Africa can turn its fortunes around by improving roads and transportation, training an army of engineers and using irrigation, solar energy and more technology.
Africa's farming record is dismal. As global agriculture has surged in the last four decades, African food production has sagged.
Globally, agricultural production grew nearly 150%. Africa's population recently surpassed 1 billion, but its production of food has shrunk 10% since the 1960s.
To make things worse, global warming is predicted to hit Africa hard. Three-quarters of sub-Saharan Africa is arid or desert, and water resources such as Lake Chad are disappearing. Global warming is forecast to cut per capita income in the region by as much as 5%, compared with the global average of 1%.
Yet Juma, of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, is convinced that with the right policies, Africa could feed itself within a generation, ending its reliance on food aid.
Juma's prescription, laid out in his new book, "The New Harvest, Agricultural Innovation in Africa," seems almost as optimistic as the Millennium Development Goals set down by world leaders in 2000, which call for halving hunger and extreme poverty worldwide by 2015. (At the current pace, most of the goals will not be met.)
Juma's book is being launched Thursday by Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete at a summit of East African leaders in Arusha, Tanzania, to discuss food insecurity. The recommendations of the book, which is published by Oxford University Press, were adopted this year by Africa's largest trading bloc, the 19-member Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
The book's prescriptions come in the wake of some spectacular agricultural debacles in Africa, notably in Zimbabwe and South Africa, where most farms transferred from white farmers to black owners have failed.

The book skirts the contentious issue of land reform.
"We avoided the land [reform] issue deliberately, actually," Juma said in a telephone interview. "A good number of people on the land don't have the effective knowledge on how to use it."
In South Africa, 90% of redistributed farms have failed, according to the government.
In Zimbabwe, where production is sinking, a study by the South-African-based independent Zimbabwe news website ZimOnline reported Tuesday that nearly half the farmland seized from white farmers since 2000, or about 12 million acres, had ended up in the hands of President Robert Mugabe's family, cronies, generals, judges, government ministers, senior police officers and ruling party loyalists.
And in Kenya, said Juma, 30% to 40% of farmland was held by people with no farming expertise.
Juma identifies knowledge, infrastructure and technology as key to developing African agriculture.
At the heart of his book is a sense that African governments have underestimated the importance of farming and how much knowledge and technology it requires.
"We thought we would leave it to the peasants and they would feed themselves," Juma said. "Agriculture has been one of the lowest areas of priority for African countries until recently, when they realized you could not just rely on food aid and, secondly, we realized that the peasants weren't feeding themselves."
His book says an agricultural revolution would transform the economies of Africa and calls on governments to put agriculture at the center of all policy decisions. The only way to rapidly train the army of engineers and scientists needed to drive growth in agriculture, he contends, is to set up new technical academies outside the university system.
Juma's optimism that Africa's agricultural failures can be quickly turned around is based on the continent's vast untapped resources. Only 4% of cropland is irrigated, and most farmers are too poor to buy fertilizers, high quality seeds or machinery without a helping hand. But he says there's room for vast improvement if governments provide investment in infrastructure, technology and education.
"Southern Sudan could feed all of Africa, and it's not in production at all," he said, referring to the vast, dusty region of Africa's largest country, which was torn by decades of war and civil conflict before separatists in the south signed a peace deal with the national government in 2005. "The reason it can't do that is poor infrastructure. Roads are crucial, energy and rural electrification."
Settlements in the south are usually a collection of far-flung huts, and women, who are married off young and denied education, must walk for hours to collect water.
"The ability to adapt to climate change will possibly be the greatest test of our capacity for social learning," Juma says in the book's final chapter. "Much of the current concern on how to foster development and prosperity in Africa reflects the consequences of recent neglect of sustainable agriculture and infrastructure as drivers of development."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-fg-africa-food-20101202,0,1094652.story

POVERTY: KENYA: Humanitarian situation likely to worsen in 2011

  Photo: Siegfried Modola/IRIN

La Niña conditions will not only lead to water scarcity but also food insecurity, heightened conflict and disease
NAIROBI, 30 November 2010 (IRIN) - Kenya is likely to witness worsening food security, significant disease outbreaks, and further pockets of conflict in 2011, as well as a continuing flow of refugees from Somalia, say aid officials.
"There is a fear of La Niña compromising the [food security] gains made," said Aeneas Chuma, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator at the 30 November launch of Kenya’s 2011 Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan (EHRP) appeal. Most of the US$525 million funding requested is expected to meet food security and refugee needs.
At present, the number of food aid beneficiaries has dropped to 1.2 million from a peak of 3.8 million during the 2009 drought due to favourable October-December 2009 short rains and March-May 2010 long rains. But numbers are expected to rise, with poor rains in eastern and northeastern regions, as well as lower levels in western areas.
According to the assistant minister in the Ministry of State for Special Programmes, Mahmoud Ali, an estimated 250,000 and 40,000 children younger than five, respectively, are affected by moderate and severe acute malnutrition nationally.
"With the La Niña, the drought, and the shortfall of water... cholera outbreaks are also likely," said Patrick Lavand’homme, deputy head for Kenya of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Kenya has been struggling with repeat cholera outbreaks since 2006 – reported cases have declined over the January to October period to 3,000 compared with 8,000 in 2009.
Conflict over water and pasture during the dry spell is also projected to continue in arid parts, with “an estimated 10,000 people… expected to be displaced due to resource-based conflicts, fuelled by proliferation of small arms into the country from the neighbouring countries”, according to the EHRP.

Planning for influx
Contingency planning for a likely surge in Southern Sudanese asylum-seekers, as a possible impact of the 9 January referendum, is also necessary, said officials. “We are talking about probably 20,000 Sudanese asylum-seekers in the first half of 2011 and about 80,000 more in the second half,” said Lavand’homme.
A continued influx of Somali refugees, now estimated at about 4,000 a month, is expected to continue into 2011. Kenya hosts 412,193 refugees and asylum-seekers and the numbers are projected to rise to 455,000 by the end of 2011, according to the government.
“Given the escalation of fighting in Somalia, a weakened central government, and the proliferation of armed groups, it is envisaged that there will be an increase in the refugee population in Dadaab [refugee camp] of between 60,000 and 100,000 in 2011,” stated the EHRP.
While Kenya's political situation is expected to remain stable in 2011, aid agencies will be assessing the impact of the recently passed constitution, such as new county boundaries, and preparations for the 2012 general elections.
The EHRP, dubbed 2011+, will be characterized by longer-term humanitarian projects incorporating disaster risk reduction into 2012-2013. "We are hoping this will encourage donors to deal with crises on a continuum basis to build on the year-on-year capacity," said Anne O'Mahony, Kenya director for Concern Worldwide.
Continued humanitarian assistance is vital as Kenya deals with multiple challenges, including a growing population and a lack of infrastructure, said O'Mahony, adding that recurrent drought and flooding had brought about a chronic poverty cycle in the arid areas.
“Chronic poverty also is not very far from our doorsteps as seen in urban slums in Nairobi and Mombasa," she said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91244