http://www.irinnews.org/irin-fp.aspxUpdated everydayen-gbMon, 15 Mar 2010 14:14:06 GMTDAKAR Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) - IRIN has asked a range of experts over the past year why malnutrition is recurrent in Niger even after decades of donor support and government programmes. Two of the hardest-hit regions were focused on - Diffa, which has borders Chad, and Zinder, which borders Nigeria.DAKAR Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) - IRIN has asked a range of experts over the past year why malnutrition is recurrent in Niger even after decades of donor support and government programmes. Two of the hardest-hit regions were focused on - Diffa, which has borders Chad, and Zinder, which borders Nigeria.

Hassane Doudou Boukary, Zinder regional director of the UN Population Fund:

"Demography is at the heart of [efforts to reduce the malnutrition rate in Zinder below the 15 percent emergency threshold]. In Niger, each woman has on average 7.1 children; in Zinder it is 7.4. Unless we can resolve the issue of family planning, there will be an open door for more malnourished children. Contraception needs to be one of the strategies to fight malnutrition."

Patrick Barbier, head of the Niger mission of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF):

“Even though there is a law that guarantees no-fee care for under-five children, it is not enforced. Access to care would give a child the resilience to withstand [food security] shocks better.”

Amadou Harouna, Zinder regional director of the Health Ministry:

"You can heal people, [but] they will always fall sick: we must educate them. But there is not enough action at the community level. There is a lack of awareness and education on nutrition issues. When there is a food distribution, people come, we distribute the food quickly because they are so rushed, but we do not know what happens when they get home. There is also the fact that [those trying to combat malnutrition] focus too much on the child, forgetting that there is a family around [that child]."

Aboubacar Mahamadou, deputy director of the Health Ministry’s office of nutrition services:

“It is a vicious circle of constant crises and international actors responding to them. There is no exit strategy for these groups. Their goal should be to prepare a government to face crises. Dependency [on these NGOs] is not good because the state does not stand on its own. It is like these emergency NGOs put out the fire, but the gas is still on. The government [until now] has not capitalized on crises to draw lessons so donors can see we have learned… There is lack of government financing on nutrition. We [office of nutrition services] want the nutrition problem recognized not only as a food security and malnutrition issue, but as something needing to be tackled in a continuum from prevention to treatment. Costs can be hard to quantify, but this a critical activity.”

Yacouba Adjahararou, Tanout regional director in the Agriculture Ministry:

“The population eats cereals [millet, sorghum] of little nutritional value. There is no off-season cultivation. However, where vegetable gardening has been developed [using drip irrigation], people eat what they produce [cabbage, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, onions] and they like it.”

Animal malnutrition

Kosso Matta Kellou, Diffa regional director in the Livestock Ministry:

“In a pastoral region like Diffa, international agencies focus on under-five children in their fight against malnutrition, but the problem starts with animals. Animals represent a family’s savings, their income, their food source, their lives and livelihoods. With dwindling water resources, animal illnesses, the shortage of pasture and fodder, herders and breeders are losing dozens of animals at a time. You can go a long way to preventing human malnutrition if you can prevent animal malnutrition. The two are linked. There is not enough investment in livestock - 90 percent of the population is made up of herders and livestock brings in most of the region’s income, and investment is not proportionate.”

Mamane El Hadj Omar, Diffa director of the NGO Helen Keller International:

“There needs to be economic development. Without that, there will always be malnutrition. It is not only a question of treating the malnourished, but also investing in education. A mother’s level of education determines how receptive she is to [nutrition education] outreach… We need to harmonize our interventions. A village has one person coming through and telling them what to do; that person leaves and the next [person] says ‘no, don’t do that, this is what you should do.’”

El Hadji Abdou Salissou, president and deputy secretary-general of the committee of nutritional crises in the Diffa governor’s office:

“Water is a huge problem here. The growing cycle keeps getting shorter. The water basin [used for growing] is increasingly covered in sand. It is not that people do not want to work, but there is no water. There have been attempts to bring in motor pumps, but that did not work. There is not enough funding for electricity [to power the pumps]. This region has the country’s fastest growing population, along with extreme poverty, water shortages, rain problems and few international actors here.”

Jenny C. Akers, economist at US-based Tufts University and fellow, Center for Global Development:

"Niger is a highly risky agro-climatic environment, with 300-500mm of rainfall per year, poor soil quality and subject to periodic droughts and pest infestations. All of these factors, but especially the periodic shocks, reduce agricultural production on a regular basis and discourage investment in agricultural production – as it is a highly risky venture. The frequency of shocks… can either be exacerbated or mitigated by agricultural markets.

"If fuel prices are low, if only a few areas were affected by drought and prices in northern Nigeria, and if surrounding countries’ prices were lower than those in Niger,  then traders could import grains from surrounding countries to make up the local deficit and keep prices fairly stable in the country. If, however, multiple markets – especially those in the breadbasket regions of Niger, Maradi and Zinder – are affected by drought, and neighbouring countries also are affected by shocks, then Niger can’t import. This is what happened in 2005 - prices soared partially because of a combination of droughts but also because of fewer imports from neighbouring countries.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88425DHAKA Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) - A new salt-resistant paddy - BRRI Dhan 47 - is offering hope to coastal farmers in southern Bangladesh whose crops are affected by climate change, say experts.DHAKA Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) - A new salt-resistant paddy - BRRI Dhan 47 - is offering hope to coastal farmers in southern Bangladesh whose crops are affected by climate change, say experts.

Thousands of small-scale rice farmers have seen their livelihoods decimated due to the effects of climate change in the low-lying area.

“Fast-increasing soil salinity, especially in agricultural lands, is a major problem in Bangladesh,” Golam Mohammad Panaullah, director of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) in Dhaka, told IRIN.

Upwards of one million hectares of land have been seriously affected by salinity, he estimated.

“With soil salinity spreading fast, the key to survival lies in developing salt-resistant agriculture,” he said.

In recent decades, rising sea levels in the Bay of Bengal have encroached on vast tracts of agricultural land in the south, undermining rice production, a staple part of the Bangladeshi diet.

Each year from November to May, a white film of salt envelops paddy fields in the 1,120km-long, mostly unprotected coastal belt in the south.

As a result, thousands of small scale farmers have leased their land to big shrimp farmers - the country’s second largest foreign exchange earner after ready-made garments - at throwaway prices, with many migrating to Dhaka to become day labourers, rickshaw drivers or beggars.

“A large portion of the saline water is nothing but the tears of the poor farmers who have been compelled to forego their paddy fields,” BRRI’s Panaullah said.

Years in the making

BRRI has been working on salt-resistant strains of food crops, particularly rice, for more than 30 years, with BRRI Dhan 47’s development beginning in 1998.

Created at BRRI’s Satkhira regional office, BRRI Dhan 47 can grow in moderately saline water.

Salinity units are expressed as deci-Siemens per metre (dS/m). According to Abdus Salam, BRRI’s director of research, the plant can withstand 12-14 dS/m of land while they are tender, and 6 dS/m in their entire lifespan of 152-155 days.

Salt tolerance capacities of other conventional high-yielding rice varieties are below 4 dS/m.

Moreover, farmers can grow it in their own shrimp enclosures, allowing them to increase their earnings.

First released by the country’s National Seed Board in 2007, BRRI Dhan-47 rice can now be found in a growing number of coastal community markets at the same price as conventional rice, or around 50 US cents per kilo.

Promising yields

This year, two tons of BRRI Dhan-47 seed have already been distributed for free among farmers in Debhata, Kaliganj, Asassuni, Shyamnagar, Tala and Sadar sub-districts in Satkhira District; Morrelganj and Sharankhola sub-districts in Bagerhat District; and Paikgachha and Koira sub-districts of Khulna District.

The paddy was sown on about 150 hectares in the saline water of shrimp enclosures in the Satkhira and Khulna coastal belt, which were earlier used for shrimp cultivation only. The expected yield is 6-7 tons per hectare or around the same as regular rice.

Adding to its advantages, the rice can also be cultivated in fresh water.

“BRRI Dhan-47 is our shield against increasing soil salinity in Bangladesh,” said Guru Pada Karmakar of the country’s Agriculture Extension Department (AED).

“The yield is very encouraging and we hope the paddy will greatly benefit coastal farmers who had lost all hopes of survival in the recent past. Now they will have both rice and shrimps. The curse has turned into [a] boon for them,” he said.

Bangladesh is one the countries most at risk from the effects of climate change in the world today, say experts.

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, [http://www.ipcc.ch/] Bangladesh is slated to lose the largest amount of cultivated land globally due to rising sea levels. A 1m rise in sea levels would inundate 20 percent of the country’s landmass.

Within the next 50 years, over 20 million people could be displaced and become “climate change refugees” if sea and salinity levels rise in Bangladesh, according to the government’s 2009 Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan. [http://www.moef.gov.bd/climate_change_strategy2009.pdf]

ao/ds/ey/cb

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88426NAIROBI Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) - Five days of fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have left residents without food, cut off from their homes and unable to bury their dead, civil society leaders in the city said.NAIROBI Monday, March 15, 2010 (IRIN) -
Five days of fighting in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have left residents without food, cut off from their homes and unable to bury their dead, civil society leaders in the city said.

“We cannot go to some of the worst-affected areas and for all we know people may be buried under the rubble of what used to be their homes,” Asha Sha’ur, a civil society activist, told IRIN. The fighting had displaced hundreds of families, she added.

In many areas of the city, people were unable to access their homes or even bury their dead. The fighting had also cut off aid deliveries.

“What little assistance that used to come in is no longer there, so they [civilians] are on their own," Sha'ur added. "It is a tragedy but no one seems to care. Imagine people with small children unable to go out and buy food or milk."

Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organization (EHRO), told IRIN the fighting between government troops and insurgent which began on 9 March "had been the most intense since May 2009".

Local sources estimate that more than 100 people had died before relative calm returned to the city on 15 March. "I would say this was the worst [fighting],” Yassin told IRIN.

Some residents, he added, had ventured out of their homes on 15 March to assess the damage and bury their dead.

"There is a feeling among the population that this is not the end and worse is yet to come," he said. Both sides, he explained, were mobilizing, with tanks belonging to the African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) dotting the city.

A medical source said the hospitals had been inundated. "We are barely coping," she told IRIN. "When you think there are no more, more are brought in."

On the move

The fighting, between AMISOM-backed government forces and the Islamist group Al-Shabab, broke out when Al-Shabab fighters attacked government positions in north Mogadishu, a local journalist told IRIN.

“By Friday [12 March], the fighting had spread to most parts of north Mogadishu. The Yaqshid, Karan, Abdiasis and Wardhigley districts were the hardest hit,” he added.

By 15 March, hundreds of families were on the move, "taking advantage of the break in the shelling”. According to the journalist, many were joining those in the Afgoye corridor - already home to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people - while others were heading to Balad, 30km north of Mogadishu.

While the death toll was more than 100, another 245 people were injured, the medical source said.

“These are the ones we can account for; there may be many more who are unaccounted for,” she said. “I am sure that once we have access to the epicentre of the fighting the death toll will be much higher.”

Most of the injured, she said, were children, citing the case of Salado Ali in Medina, Mogadishu's main hospital. Her six-year-old son and husband were injured when their home in the northern Karan district was hit by a shell.

"The doctors have removed the pieces from the boy's stomach," she told IRIN by telephone. "They tell me he is stable."

Salado, whose husband was in another wing of the hospital with a less serious injury, said: "I don't think there is anyone left in our neighbourhood."

ah/mw
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Five days of fighting in the
Somali capital, Mogadishu, have left residents without food, cut off from their
homes and unable to bury their dead, civil society leaders in the city said.
 
“We cannot go to some of the worst-affected areas and for
all we know people may be buried under the rubble of what used to be their
homes,” Asha Sha’ur, a civil society activist, told IRIN. The fighting had
displaced hundreds of families, she added.
 
In many areas of the city, people were unable to access
their homes or even bury their dead. The fighting had also cut off aid
deliveries.
 
“What little assistance that used to come in is no longer
there, so they [civilians] are on their own," Sha'ur added. "It is a
tragedy but no one seems to care. Imagine people with small children unable to
go out and buy food or milk."
 
Ali Sheikh Yassin, deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based
Elman Human Rights Organization (EHRO), told IRIN the fighting between
government troops and insurgent which began on 9 March "had been the most
intense since May 2009".
 
Local sources estimate that more than 100 people had died
before relative calm returned to the city on 15 March. "I would say this
was the worst [fighting],” Yassin told IRIN.
 
Some residents, he added, had ventured out of their homes
on 15 March to assess the damage and bury their dead.
 
"There is a feeling among the population that this is
not the end and worse is yet to come," he said. Both sides, he explained,
were mobilizing, with tanks belonging to the African Union (AU) peacekeeping
mission (AMISOM) dotting the city.
 
A medical source said the hospitals had been inundated.
"We are barely coping," she told IRIN. "When you think there are
no more, more are brought in."
 
On the move
 
The fighting, between AMISOM-backed government forces and
the Islamist group Al-Shabab, broke out when Al-Shabab fighters attacked
government positions in north Mogadishu, a local journalist told IRIN.
 
“By Friday [12 March], the fighting had spread to most
parts of north Mogadishu. The Yaqshid, Karan, Abdiasis and Wardhigley districts
were the hardest hit,” he added.
 
By 15 March, hundreds of families were on the move,
"taking advantage of the break in the shelling”. According to the
journalist, many were joining those in the Afgoye corridor - already home to
hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people - while others were
heading to Balad, 30km north of Mogadishu.
 
While the death toll was more than 100, another 245
people were injured, the medical source said.
 
“These are the ones we can account for; there may be many
more who are unaccounted for,” she said. “I am sure that once we have access to
the epicentre of the fighting the death toll will be much higher.”
 
Most of the injured, she said, were children, citing the
case of Salado Ali in Medina, Mogadishu's main hospital. Her six-year-old son
and husband were injured when their home in the northern Karan district was hit
by a shell.
 
"The doctors have removed the pieces from the boy's
stomach," she told IRIN by telephone. "They tell me he is
stable."
 
Salado, whose husband was in another wing of the hospital
with a less serious injury, said: "I don't think there is anyone left in
our neighbourhood."
 
ah/mw
 
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88427JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020. This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). JOHANNESBURG Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - Most food crop cultivation in Africa is rain-fed, but climate change is affecting vital rainfall patterns and pushing up temperatures, diminishing yields that could halve in some countries by 2020. This warning has been widely quoted since it first appeared in a synthesis report for policy-makers in 2007 by the authoritative UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Clouds of doubt gathered over the statement after it emerged that the IPCC report had based the projection on a non-peer reviewed research paper -otherwise known as "grey literature".

The claim was published in Sunday Times newspaper in the UK on 7 February, in a report headlined "Africagate: top British scientist says UN panel is losing credibility".

A flood of allegations from all quarters then began to question the credibility of the 2007 assessment report. Governments and policy-makers use the IPCC assessment reports to formulate plans and strategies for coping with climate change.

So, is the projection incorrect? We asked the IPCC and other scientists, but we will have to wait until the end of August 2010 to find out.

On 10 March the UN announced that a Netherlands-based group of 15 national academies of science would review how the IPCC does its work. The Panel publishes periodic assessments by the three committees that deal with the causes of climate change, its impact, and mitigation options. The review committee will also consider whether the IPCC should use non-peer reviewed papers.

What other scientists say

The projection that crop yields could be reduced by 50 percent in some African countries, contained in the synthesis report, was based on a paper cited in the Panel's report on impacts.

Written by Ali Agoumi, a Moroccan climate expert, the paper "is a summary of technical studies and research conducted" in three countries - Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia - submitted to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, "and is a perfectly legitimate IPCC reference", wrote a group of scientists involved in the panel's reports on the popular blog RealClimate, run by them on 14 February.

"The IPCC cites 18,000 references in the AR4 [Fourth assessment report]; the vast majority of these are peer-reviewed scientific journal papers ... it is indispensable to use gray sources, since many valuable data are published in them," the scientists said in defence of grey literature.

"Reports by government statistics offices, the International Energy Agency, World bank ... This is particularly true when it comes to regional impacts in the least developed countries, where knowledgeable local experts exist who have little chance, or impetus, to publish in international science journals," the scientists commented.

Yet it is not the use of grey literature that seems to be the issue. David Lobell, of Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, who has worked extensively on projecting the impact of climate change on crop yields in Africa, called the IPCC statement in the synthesis report "ill-advised".

"The original syntax was technically correct (i.e., worst years are 50 percent yields drops, and these could become more common), but it was easily misinterpreted as a statement about average yields," he said.

IPCC officials often quoted the statement to illustrate the possible impact of climate change on food production in Africa, when the document on which it was based only referred to three North African countries.

"Part of the problem was that the scientific literature on some of these issues was quite lacking at the time [when the report was being compiled – the report takes three years to be written]," Lobell acknowledged.

"One risk now is that people could interpret the IPCC statement as being wrong, saying that Africa doesn't really face a threat, or that other IPCC statements are also in doubt. In fact, we think Africa faces some of the toughest impacts on agriculture in the world, just not as extreme as the IPCC statement suggested."

The scandal

The Sunday Times report in the UK was among several that followed a controversy dubbed "Climategate", which broke in November 2009, ahead of the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen in December. The row started when hacked emails by the Climatic Research Unit at the University in East Anglia, one of the centres that supplied data to the IPCC, were published on a website for climate change sceptics.

Since then, newspapers across the world have published allegations by climate change sceptics, organizations, government officials, and other publications that the IPCC manipulated climate change data or used non-peer reviewed papers as the basis for some of its projections.

The UN panel defended its work until it was forced to admit in January that it had erroneously projected that 80 percent of the Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035.

The panel had sourced the projection from a document produced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which had used an interview by a scientist with the magazine, New Scientist, in 1999 as the source of the projection, and not a scientific publication.

jk/he

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88400NIAMEY/ZINDER Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - A severe food and malnutrition crisis is looming in Niger, according to aid agencies. More than 20,000 under-five children are being treated for malnutrition nationwide and at least another 200,000 are at risk of severe malnutrition, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).NIAMEY/ZINDER Thursday, March 11, 2010 (IRIN) - A severe food and malnutrition crisis is looming in Niger, according to aid agencies.

More than 20,000 under-five children are being treated for malnutrition nationwide and at least another 200,000 are at risk of severe malnutrition, according to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

“You need to go to the field to realize that we need to act now,” said Kalil Hamadoun, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) field director for Zinder region in southern Niger, which had the country’s second highest percentage of children underweight for their height, according to a December 2009 government study.

Selling prized cattle, cutting meals, eating food intended for animals and scrounging for anything to sell as firewood or animal feed have become increasingly common, according to local officials and the national information system for livestock sales.

Access to food, rather than its availability, is turning out to be the main problem in 2010, according to the US famine monitoring group, FEWS NET.

The needs are urgent and the response must be immediate, UN Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) head of mission Modibo Traoré told IRIN. “Everything takes time. [Aid delivery] is long and difficult and it can take weeks before it makes it to its destination.”

Food prices up, incomes down

Food and fodder prices in parts of the south are up around 30 percent on 2009, according to FAO and Belgian NGO Aquadev.

But March incomes have dropped to half of what they were last September due to more agriculture workers competing for dwindling jobs, according to the US famine monitoring group FEWS NET.

“We need to ensure people have access to food… We are not even in the hungry season yet,” Aboubacar Mahamadou, the Health Ministry’s deputy director of nutrition services, told IRIN, referring to the June-September planting season when most families have finished eating their previous harvests and are waiting for the next one in October.

Interventions

The World Food Programme (WFP) is planning "blanket" food distributions - months earlier than usual if needed - to 500,000 children aged 6-23 months in 20 of the neediest communities.

“If we look at a map of interventions at the moment, we see they are drops of water in the ocean [of need],” WFP regional director in Zinder, Doumbaye Djimadoumngar, told IRIN.

OCHA has estimated it will cost more than US$200 million to cover 60 percent of Zinder’s food needs before the next harvest, and to continue nutrition activities.

The European Commission for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO) has pledged an additional US$27 million to fight malnutrition in Niger and neighbouring Sahelian countries. The exact amount for Niger will be decided in the coming months. Last year, Niger received $17.7 million from ECHO.

The UK government has recently announced additional emergency funding for Niger. This comes on top of $81 million emergency aid from the European Commission, Islamic Development Bank, and the governments of Japan, Spain and the USA.

ail/pt/cb

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88402NAIROBI Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Violet Tinah, 40, a resident of Korogocho slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is living with HIV and was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis, but her biggest problem today is not disease - but hunger.NAIROBI Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - Violet Tinah, 40, a resident of Korogocho slum in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, is living with HIV and was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis, but her biggest problem today is not disease - but hunger.

"When I went for the results that informed me that I had TB, I was very hungry; I'd had no breakfast and lunch and could barely walk," she told IRIN/PlusNews. "I had to be supported and put in a wheelchair to collect the drugs.

"Often I go without food and during such times I feel dizzy and nauseous after swallowing the [TB and HIV] drugs," the formerly prosperous carpenter added. "Putting food on the table is like a dream."

On the day she spoke to IRIN/PlusNews, Tinah had had only a cup of black tea for breakfast and no lunch; a concerned neighbour has brought her some porridge "to help me swallow my drugs". Tinah was hoping her unemployed nephew would pass by later with a little food.

Many of the slum's residents live on food salvaged from a nearby rubbish dump and sold on the streets of Korogocho.

According to a 2009 World Bank poverty assessment, the poor in Kenya spend 70 percent of their income on food on average - those in the poorest 20 percent of the population spend 77 percent. Sharp increases in the price of staples in 2008 - maize flour rose by as much as 130 percent between 2008 and 2009 - and a national food crisis in 2009 mean poverty has been on the rise.

The urban poor, most of whom do not farm, have been particularly hard hit.

Korogocho location chief Rebecca Balongo told IRIN/PlusNews that many programmes supporting HIV-affected households had collapsed. "It is not unusual to have a family share only a plate of food in a day," he said.

Little help

The Kenya Network of Women with AIDS, which until 2009 provided food assistance to about 4,000 HIV-positive people in slums in central Kenya, has had to shut down its feeding programme due to lack of funding.

"We are no longer giving food at our drop-in centres in Korogocho, Kiambiu, Soweto and Mathare slums in Nairobi, Kiandutu slums in Thika and Kiawara slums in Nyeri town," said KENWA advocacy programme officer James Ndung'u.

"KENWA is only providing highly nutritious porridge to the very weak and bedridden clients.

"The slums have high HIV prevalence rates and without food there are challenges; our nurse has reported clients failing to collect ARVs on schedule - they say they are busy looking for work to buy food," he added. "ARVs require one to have a proper diet, but on an empty stomach, there is a tendency to default and consequent risk of drug resistance."

A few programmes continue to provide support in the form of food or cash transfers. Concern Worldwide has started a cash transfer programme in Korogocho to provide food subsidies of about US$20 per month to 2,000 extremely vulnerable households, including bed-ridden HIV-positive people.

However, Concern's programme is due to end in June, after which the government is expected to take it over. Slum residents and officials are not optimistic; chief Balongo says the government did not send any food support to her area in 2009.

Employment is scarce for the slum's residents, especially if they are weak. Frederick Egesa works as a watchman, earning about $47 a month. He walks to work, has no days off and is docked two-and-a-half days’ pay for every day he misses work.

"Look at my many dependents - I spend 1,000 shillings [$13] on rent and have 200 shillings [$2.60] daily for food, so we have to skip eating at times," he said. "When I collect my ARVs, I am advised to eat well, but how do I manage a balanced diet?"

wm/kr/mw

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88373TANOUT Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - "Empty" increasingly describes villages around the southern Niger town of Tanout in Zinder Region: Water wells and pastures, fields and food banks - and slowly - entire villages, are emptying.TANOUT Wednesday, March 10, 2010 (IRIN) - “Empty” increasingly describes the southern Niger town of Tanout in Zinder Region: Water wells and pastures, fields and food banks - and slowly - entire villages, are emptying.

Of the 42 families in the village of Garin Dagabi, 13 have left in search of food and water, along with the heads of 20 other families.

During a typically four-month rainy season, the village had two good rains, said its leader, Issouf Boukary. “During the first rain, we planted millet, which started to grow… but then the entire harvest dried up.”

Insufficient rains nationwide [http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=85296] led to a 31 percent slump in crop production compared to last year - 410,000 tons less - according to the government’s latest estimates.

Per-capita gross cereal production for Niger’s 15 million people is likely to be the lowest in 20 years, with more than half the country facing production deficits similar to those in 2004 that contributed to the country’s 2005 food crisis, according to the US famine monitoring group, FEWS NET.

The government has estimated that poor rains have forced some two million people to finish off their food reserves seven months before the next harvest. Another five million may soon follow.

A cereal bank set up three years ago in Garin Dagabi with 10 tons of cereal now has only three tons remaining. “We have a little money in the bank to buy other sacks [of millet], but at current [elevated] prices [in Zinder], we would have to go far to be able to afford it,” Boukary told IRIN.

Gouragass

It is not much better in the nearby village of Gouragass where farmers harvested about 10 percent of the millet, sorghum and beans they typically grow. “In a normal [rain] year, we can cover 9-10 months of our [food] needs, but this year was really bad: We did not get even one month of food after the harvest [October 2009],” said village chief Alhadji Idi.

A government distribution of 140 tons of millet in October 2009 to nine villages in the region is long gone. Remittances have done little to cover the gap, as in the past, both village chiefs told IRIN.

“The village has not known a situation this difficult since [the 1984 food crisis]. Even [2005] was not this bad. And the hardest part is only beginning,” Idi told IRIN. Villagers have cut in half how much they eat, he added.

Nigerien sociologist Issouf Bayard, originally from Zinder, told IRIN that 1984 was a pastoral and agricultural crisis, whereas 2005 was primarily agricultural.

“Now in 2010 we have agricultural and pastoral problems, plus a population that has doubled in size and health epidemics we did not have two decades ago.”

It will take some US$166 million to avoid a food crisis in Zinder, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Famine food

With food prices on average 30 percent higher in December in Zinder than in previous years, according to Belgian NGO Aquadev, households are turning to a wild weed known locally as ‘jiga’ - normally the fare of camels and locusts.

“Jiga is a famine food,” the local Agriculture Ministry director, Yacouba Adjaharou, told IRIN. “People normally eat it in small quantities. When they start eating more of it so early [in the season], it is a sign of hard times.”

Cattle sell-off

Families are selling their cows - including pregnant ones and calves - to afford food, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). “This phenomenon is a sign of crisis, as a breeder would never sell his cow that recently gave birth if he were not in serious difficulty,” FAO emergency programme officer, Nourou Tall, told IRIN.

Malnourished animals and weak demand from Niger’s biggest customer, Nigeria, whose currency is worth less this year against the French franc (CFA), have reduced asking prices by up to half.

“Before, we could sell a ewe for at least US$42 and now we only get half as much,” said Gouragass chief Idi.

Digging deeper

Poor rains have worsened the shortage of hay - estimated at five million tons in 2008 by FAO - used as animal feed. This year, there is only enough for one-third of Niger’s cattle.

Even that will last at most another two months, according to a recent discussion hosted by FAO for groups working on food security. “The situation will be very critical starting in April,” FAO’s Tall told IRIN.

The government estimates an additional shortage of 32,000 tons of animal food, such as corn, of which FAO will provide 8,450 tons. Most will go to the most easterly region of Niger, Diffa, followed by Zinder.

Meanwhile, residents with no cattle are digging deeper - literally - to find cash, by selling anything that can be transformed into animal feed or firewood. “Because so many trees have been cut down, people are digging two to three metres to unearth the roots of large trees,” said Tanout Department’s agriculture director, Souleymane Roufaï Kane.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88385JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - Rice producing Asian countries had to contend with poor rains in 2009, and now another season of low rainfall has been forecast for some of them, which has prompted concern whether the price of the grain could go up later in 2010.JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - Rice producing Asian countries had to contend with poor rains in 2009, and now another season of low rainfall has been forecast for some of them, which has prompted concern whether the price of the grain could go up later in 2010.

This is the second of a four-part series on food security where IRIN asks, "Are we heading for another crisis?" In this report we look at the possible impact of the current El Niño on rice prices in Asia and we find it seems a bit unclear.

In 2009 the impact of El Niño - the periodic flow of warm sea water across the central and eastern Pacific Ocean - disrupted rainfall patterns across Asia.

"In the short-term rice stocks are comfortable but it will be hard to predict the impact on prices if there is another bad season", Concepcion Calpe, Senior Commodity Specialist on rice with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.

There are good stocks in the world's largest exporter of rice, Thailand, and the second largest, Vietnam, said Calpe. Vietnam's main rice growing area, the Mekong River Delta, is facing a serious drought.

Andrew Aaronson, chairperson of Interagency Commodity Estimates Committee on rice at the US Department of Agriculture concurred, "Global rice stocks are for the most part `comfortable' at the present time assuming normal import demand... The global rice situation is okay now, but is worth watching very closely."

"Possible dry weather in coming months could negatively affect the secondary cropping seasons, mainly rice," said William Dar, director-general of the India-based International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT).

El Niño can lead to higher atmospheric temperatures and have a disruptive impact on seasonal rains. Experts believe the phenomenon will linger until the middle of 2010 in some parts, affecting crop yields.

Poor monsoons, linked by some experts to the El Niño in 2009, had affected rice yields in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

On March 4, the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAG-ASA) said many parts of the Philippines had poor rainfall because of the current El Niño and dry spells would continue through to June 2010.

"We don't know yet if it [the lingering El Niño] will impact on the monsoons [in South Asia] again this year," said Calpe.

Aaronson said another poor monsoon in South Asia, particularly in India - a major consumer and producer - "could drastically change the current situation", but the El Niño has begun to turn moderate, which "may point to a more normal monsoon in 2010; however, that is just a guess at this time".

When food supply in Asia and the Pacific, home to two-thirds of the world's population, is inadequate, the effect ripples throughout the world and the impact on the global food supply can be partly responsible for a food crisis, as happened in 2008.

ICRISAT's Dar said PAG-ASA had forecast 40 percent to 60 percent less rainfall in the Philippines, and was expected to reduce rice yields significantly.

The Philippines is the world's biggest importer of rice. If the Philippines enters the market to buy it will have an impact on prices, experts believe. In its first Crop Prospects and Food Situation in 2010, FAO listed Philippines along with Bangladesh, China, Nepal and Iraq, as countries that were expected to import to compensate for crop losses because of poor rains.

FAO said rice stocks held by five major exporting countries - Thailand, Vietnam, India, Pakistan and the United States - would come under pressure.

Food prices have begun to rise within many Asian countries. "We might have entered a phase of high prices, food prices within countries remain high - the cost of production specially labour prices have gone up in Thailand and Vietnam," pointed out Calpe.

To deal with weather-related uncertainty in the long-term Dar called for a strategy to counter the impact of what he called "climaggedon", brought on by the combined effects of El Niño and climate change. He said governments should start phasing in hybrid seeds and crop varieties that were "climate change ready" to ensure food security, and consider water-saving irrigation technologies.

Here is a snapshot of the Asian and Middle Eastern countries that feature in the FAO list of the world's 33 most food insecure nations.

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Iraq

Type of food insecurity
Exceptional shortfall in food supplies.

Reason
Severe insecurity and poor harvests in the past.

Change since November 2009
The situation is unchanged. Insecurity persists in a country ravaged by conflict. Poor weather conditions in 2009 brought the smallest crop ever harvested.

The security situation in Iraq is visibly better than in 2006/07, but the high levels of violence contributed to some 1.55 million Iraqis being displaced within the country since 2006, according to the Iraq Humanitarian Action Plan 2010.

Nutritional status
A UNICEF-led survey in 2006 found 11 percent of children aged below five to be severely stunted.

CAP funding
Under the Humanitarian Action Plan 2010, agencies have asked for more than US$193.5 million.


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Afghanistan

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity

Reason
Ongoing conflict and several years of drought have prolonged people's precarious circumstances.

Change since November 2009
The situation has deteriorated despite a bumper wheat harvest in May/June 2009. Longstanding conflicts continue to erode incomes and assets, and displace people.

Nutritional status
The effects of the food, fuel and financial crises are putting an estimated 1.2 million children under five at high risk of household insecurity, malnutrition, infectious diseases and livelihood vulnerability, according to UNICEF's Humanitarian Action Report 2010.

CAP funding
Only 8.9 percent of the $870 million requested has been covered.


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Bangladesh

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
A series of cyclones have displaced people, affecting livelihoods and food production in some parts.

Change since November 2009
Improving as the impact of the cyclones dissipates. Food production was affected by the failed monsoons in 2009 and food prices have begun to rise.

Nutrition status
A Demographic and Health Survey in 2007 found 16 percent of children aged less than five years were severely stunted, an indicator of chronic malnutrition.

CAP funding
There is no current CAP for Bangladesh.


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Myanmar

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
Food insecurity persists in areas affected by Cyclone Nargis, which struck southern Myanmar in 2008. The cyclone destroyed livelihoods, agricultural infrastructure and assets.

Change since November 2009
Improving as the impact of the cyclone ameliorates. The price of rice, the staple food, is stable but still higher than pre-2007 levels.
Localized food supply and market access problems persist.

Nutritional status
In 2007 the World Health Organization reanalyzed the findings of a UNICEF-led survey conducted in 2003 and found that 16 percent of children aged less than five were severely stunted.

CAP funding
There is no current CAP for Myanmar.


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Nepal

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
Poor market access and past disasters. Some 2.7 million people have reportedly been affected by floods, a winter drought and high food prices. The loss of the 2008/09 winter crop was followed by the failure of the monsoon season in 2009, affecting the paddy crop.

Change since November 2009
Circumstances of people affected by natural disasters are improving.

Nutritional status
A Demographic and Health Survey in 2006 found 20 percent of children aged below five were severely stunted.

CAP funding
The Nepal Humanitarian Transition Appeal was issued in 2009, and later revised upwards to $145 million.


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Pakistan

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
Serious insecurity in the conflict-weary northwestern part of the country has led to the displacement of nearly two million Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). High food prices have also affected affordability.

Change since November 2008
Prices have begun to rise again, reflecting concerns over the 2009/10 winter crop because of droughts in various parts.

Nutritional status
Malnutrition rates are typically around 10 percent among children under five, according to UNICEF Humanitarian Action Plan 2010. The agency intends to treat 211,000 children under five years old for acute malnutrition.

CAP funding
An appeal for more than $537.7 million in 2010 has been issued.


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Philippines

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
Past tropical storms and localized conflicts affect food insecurity. Tropical storm Ketsana affected two million people in the main rice producing area, the northern island of Luzon, in September 2009.

Change since November 2009
People are recovering from the impact of Ketsana, but food aid is still needed. Rice production in 2010 is also likely to be affected; drought is expected in some of the major rice producing areas.

Nutritional status
In 2007 WHO reanalyzed the findings of a 2003 national nutrition survey and found the incidence of severe stunting to be 11 percent among children younger than five.

CAP funding
A flash appeal was issued in November 2009 for $143.7 million for people affected by storms and floods.


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Sri Lanka

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
A 25-year civil war with separatist rebels mainly in the north and east ended in May 2009. Livelihoods and food security were affected in those areas, and many people fled the fighting. Farming has been disrupted.

Change since November 2009
The lingering effects of the war are dissipating. Food production and local markets are being resurrected in the affected areas.

Nutritional status
A Demographic and Health Survey in 2006/07 found that four percent of children aged under five were severely stunted.

CAP funding
A mid-year review in 2009 of the Common Humanitarian Action Plan said approximately $270 million had been requested.


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Yemen

Type of food insecurity
Severe localized food insecurity.

Reason
Escalating conflict in the northern governorates of Saada and Amran has affected the food security situation there. The number of IDPs has doubled since August 2009.

Change since November 2009
Yemen is a new entry in the list with the food security situation in north having taken a turn for the worse. The Humanitarian Response Plan for Yemen 2010 said structural factors had limited agricultural growth and the country had become a net food importer, bringing in 90 percent of wheat and 100 percent of rice, the two staple commodities. An estimated 48 percent of households are food-insecure.

Nutritional status
According to the Humanitarian Response Plan half of all children were chronically malnourished.

CAP funding
The Humanitarian Response Plan 2010, issued in November 2009, appealed for $177.4 million.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88361JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - An outbreak of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in two South African provinces has killed one person, while five others have tested positive for the disease, which has also caused "extensive livestock deaths", the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), said in a statement on 9 March. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - An outbreak of Rift Valley Fever (RVF) in two South African provinces has killed one person, while five others have tested positive for the disease, which has also caused "extensive livestock deaths", the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), said in a statement on 9 March.

As of 4 March 2010, the livestock disease - which can be transmitted to humans by handling infected animal tissue during butchering - had been reported on 14 farms in Free State and one farm in the neighbouring province of Northern Cape.

Initial estimates by veterinarians in the affected region are that more than 1,000 livestock have perished. High mortality rates are experienced among young animals and the disease causes pregnancies to be aborted.

NICD director Dr Lucille Blumberg told IRIN the authorities had responded well to the outbreak, but RVF was "difficult to control", and "lots of rain recently" had resulted in ideal breeding conditions for mosquitoes - the vector of the disease.

Investigations were being carried out by the health and agricultural departments, supported by the South African Field Epidemiology and Training Programme, and NICD.

Outbreaks of RVF are common; in 2009 more than 50 animals died in KwaZulu-Natal Province, but the most serious occurrence of the disease in South Africa was between 1974 and 1976, when an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 humans were infected.

"The current outbreak is within the same area, highlighting the importance of timely interventions to prevent further spread," the NICD said.

Blumberg said the disease was "asymptomatic", or mild, in the vast majority of people, but about one percent of those infected could experience a more severe reaction.

According to the NICD website, "complications include: ocular (retinal) disease, meningo-encephalitis, [and] or haemorrhagic fever. Onset of retinal lesions usually occurs one to three weeks after the first symptoms appear, and may lead to permanent loss of vision, necessitating continual follow-up of patients for a one-month period after symptoms resolve. Disease is rarely fatal."

Molefi Sefularo, the deputy minister of health, said in a statement on 8 March that "A 45-year-old patient, who was admitted to a mine hospital on 26 February 2010 with a provisional diagnosis of Congo fever, died a day later and confirmation of RVF was made on the 4th of March."

RVF was first identified by a British veterinary surgeon in Kenya more than 50 years ago, and is endemic to South Africa and the rest of the continent, as well as the Indian Ocean islands of Comoros and Madagascar.

go/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88367DAKAR Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - The poorest households in Chad will find themselves with no food reserves in the coming weeks, according to the US famine early warning systems network, FEWSNET.DAKAR Tuesday, March 09, 2010 (IRIN) - The poorest households in Chad will find themselves with no food reserves in the coming weeks, according to the US famine early warning systems network, FEWSNET.

FEWSNET’s prediction of the country’s food situation from January until June says the poorest households, notably in pastoral regions, will be forced to resort to harsh strategies such as selling off their productive assets, cutting food intake, and mass migration to more hospitable areas.

According to the government, erratic or late rains led to a 2009 harvest that was 30 percent less than in recent years, and two million people who would normally still be living off the land are having trouble affording food.

Estimates do not take into account the populations living in the remote northern desert regions of Tibesti, Borkou and Ennedi, which cover almost half the country.

These sparsely populated regions are readily accessible only by helicopter, and are heavily mined from previous conflicts and have few projects funded by international agencies.

Underweight children

A nutrition survey conducted last December in Bahr El Ghazel, a semi-arid pastoral region in the west of the country, showed that 27 percent of the 687 under five children surveyed were underweight. This is almost double the emergency threshold set by the World Health Organization at 15 percent.

Loan Tran-Thanh, the head of Action Against Hunger (ACF) in Chad which conducted the survey, told IRIN the results were alarming.

"This was in the middle of the harvest period when malnutrition rates should be lower than [during] the lean rain season,” she said. “If it is already that high in a harvest period, then how bad could it get during the lean period?"

In the nearby district of Noukou in western Kanem region bordering Niger, 19 percent of 540 children surveyed had acute levels of malnutrition.

Acute malnutrition tends to change based on the season, as opposed to chronic malnutrition which results from year-round lack of life-enriching nutrients.

The region has always had chronic malnutrition, said Tran-Thanh, who has worked in Chad since 2004.

Animals wasted to death

"When ACF arrived in the Kanem region, all the attention was in the east [of Chad] with the violence in [neighbouring] Darfur. The rains this year did exacerbate acute malnutrition in Kanem and the areas we surveyed, but these are zones that have always had chronic hunger problems,” she said.

Because of lack of funds, ACF closed its Kanem office but returned to the region in 2008 with funding from the European Commission Humanitarian Aid (ECHO).

Animals in the pastoral zones from the western Kanem region to the eastern region of Biltine wasted to death when pastures dried out because of late 2009 rains, according to the government.

Cattle that survived the erratic rains had problems reproducing and producing milk, according to a government and multi-agency survey in October 2009.

The survey says the animals and their herders started heading south in late October seeking greener pastures - months before the typical migration season.

This "first strategy of nomadic herders” will lead to conflicts between herders and farmers, according to the survey.

Dwindling grazing and cultivable land has led to bloody clashes between pastoralists and farmers in at least two of Chad's neighbouring countries, Sudan and Nigeria.

Emergency needs

The government has about 23,000 tons of cereals, 350 tons of rice seeds and 200 sacks of animal feed, but "the fight against malnutrition is an emergency operation and needs more", said Chadian Minister of Economy Ousmane Mater Brémé.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has pledged $500,000 worth of animal feed for the arid Bahr El Ghazel region and $1 million worth of seeds for the regions referred to as the Sahelian band in west and central Chad.

The UN Children's Fund, World Food Programme and ACF are also preparing to open more than 100 nutritional feeding centres in the same regions.

The agencies will distribute 50,000 cartons of high-energy `Plumpy'nut’ peanut paste and give high fat `Plumpy'doz’ brown paste supplement to 45,000 children aged 6-23 months during the peak hunger months from May to August.

ACF is analyzing findings from its water and sanitation study conducted in Bahr El Ghazel, Tran-Thanh told IRIN.

"If we do not address the underlying issues of malnutrition - Is there access to water or health services? - then malnutrition will continue to exist. The trouble with addressing all these different issues is that there are just not enough actors coming together to study [the various facets]."

pt/pm/cb http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88370MANILA Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Warnings have been raised over food security in the Philippines as the El Niño phenomenon wreaks havoc across vast agricultural areas, leaving staple crops such as rice dying in parched earth, officials say. MANILA Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - Warnings have been raised over food security in the Philippines as the El Niño phenomenon wreaks havoc across vast agricultural areas, leaving staple crops such as rice dying in parched earth, officials say.

The cost of crop damage has topped US$239 million since the phenomenon started a heat wave across much of northern Luzon Island and parts of the central Visayas region in late December, said the Department of Agriculture in a recent report by its special task force on El Niño.

Some 14 provinces have been affected, with the brunt of the crisis borne by the agricultural provinces of Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Cagayan and Isabela, where irrigation has dried up.

The El Niño drought is compounding problems for an already bleak agricultural sector recovering from devastation wrought last year by two powerful storms, Ketsana and Parma, that pummelled Luzon, officials say.

To stave off a potential shortfall in rice supply, the agriculture department has said it may import some three million metric tonnes of rice this year.

Gary Olivar, spokesman for Philippines President Gloria Arroyo, confirmed that the government had entered into import contracts for rice as a "short-term alternative".

"There are no long-term food shortage effects from a short-term phenomenon like El Niño, but we are preparing for its more frequent recurrence due to global warming by expanding our water supply sources, exploring dry weather cultivation methods, as well as similar other policies," Olivar told IRIN.

Range of crops affected

Pig and poultry farmers are also alarmed at the impact on corn crops, fearing skyrocketing prices of animal feeds, since corn is a major raw material.

According to official statistics, 54 percent of the total 487,389ha planted with rice, corn, tobacco and other high value commercial crops have been affected in the northern region.

Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya and Cagayan provinces are officially under a “state of calamity”, so they can now tap extra government funding.

The government is also racing against time to save remaining crops by bringing in additional irrigation pumps and seeding clouds in what has so far been a failed bid to induce rain. Teams of experts are also monitoring possible drought-triggered outbreaks of pests and diseases.

The World Food Programme (WFP) described the situation as "a slow onset emergency".

“We are particularly concerned for people still trying to recover from floods and storms that hit the country in September and October, that now, when they are trying to grow crops, they are again confronted with another natural disaster,” WFP country director Stephen Anderson told IRIN.

Long-term solutions needed

With much of the arable land relying on rain-fed irrigation systems, the situation has become dire, a coalition of rice farmers and traders is warning.

It noted that the bulk of rice production was expected in the last quarter of the year, but this could be weakened by the extended effects of El Niño.

The group is urging the government to help farmers withstand abnormal weather conditions threatening the country’s staple foods instead of “quick fix” solutions like importing rice.

"Being in the typhoon corridor of the Pacific, the Philippines is naturally vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather," said Jessica Reyes-Cantos, head of the Rice Watch and Action Network. "However, the government continues to resort to [the] quick fix solution of importing when struck by natural calamity."

Farmers are marginalized after years of neglect, while the government has failed to "devise strategic and effective measures" confronting the industry, such as climate change, she said.

She said only $212.7 million was needed to put in place working irrigation systems for some 164,000ha of rice fields in the country, thereby increasing yields.

Ernesto Lactao, a 52-year-old father of two in Isabela province, said without proper irrigation systems, small farmers like him had to invest in pumps to draw out ground water, increasing capital outlays but not improving harvests.

“What we need now is support from government, price subsidies and proper irrigation," Lactao told IRIN. "Do we have to wait until people are dying of hunger before we get help?"

El Niño is a weather phenomenon in which warmer water from the western Pacific Ocean flows towards the east, disrupting atmospheric systems.

It creates a major shift in rainfall, bringing floods and landslides to arid countries and drought to areas in the western Pacific.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88347MBABANE Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - The myriad crises afflicting Swaziland can only be solved with a holistic approach, not a piecemeal one, the World Food Programme (WFP) deputy executive director, Sheila Sisulu, said during a recent tour of the country.MBABANE Monday, March 08, 2010 (IRIN) - The myriad crises afflicting Swaziland can only be solved with a holistic approach, not a piecemeal one, the World Food Programme (WFP) deputy executive director, Sheila Sisulu, said during a recent tour of the country.

Swaziland, a small landlocked country with a population of about one million people, is ruled by King Mswati III - sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarch - while contending with the world's highest HIV/AIDS prevalence, food insecurity, poor education systems, extreme poverty and a moribund economy.

Miriam Dlamini, a widowed mother of five living in rural Mliba, about 60km north of Swaziland's second city, Manzini, personifies the plight of many Swazis.

"My husband died of AIDS and left me alone to work the fields, but I am HIV positive. I need food for my children, and for myself so my ARVs work properly, but I cannot do the farm work alone, and I have no money to hire helpers or to pay for seeds and fertilizer and a team of oxen to plough," she told IRIN.

In the largely rural economy, where 70 percent of Swazis survive in a state of chronic poverty, her daily burden - like that of many others - is overwhelming. "I don't know where to begin. I wake up tired and when the day is over, so little has been done, and that makes me more tired," Dlamini said. "I receive [WFP food] packages and ARVs from the clinic, but I must travel to both places with no money for transport."

A change for the better could be on the way. On 3 March 2010, Swaziland became a member of the Common Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) - an initiative by the African Union (AU) and the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) to address food security and agricultural production.

At the signing ceremony in the Swazi capital, Mbabane, Sisulu told a round table discussion that the spill-over of one crisis into another compounded the effects of each crisis, and the country would be hard pressed to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGS).

Interconnectiions

"Agricultural production, HIV and AIDS, food security and poverty are interconnected and cannot be tackled in isolation of each other. We believe a comprehensive approach is key to achieving the underlying objective of CAADP ... meeting Goal One of the Millennium Development Goals of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger ... at current trends, Swaziland is unlikely to achieve [this] by 2015."

Swaziland is no longer a net exporter of foodstuffs: drought and a population that has tripled since independence from Britain in 1968 have forced people to farm marginal lands, while HIV/AIDS has decimated the agricultural workforce. According to UNAIDS, about 26 percent of Swaziland's sexually active population are infected with HIV.

Membership of CAADP paves the way for the establishment of an Agricultural Development Bank of Swaziland, which could be used to provide loans or grants for subsidising agricultural inputs.

Such an eventuality would necessitate a sea change in relations between the government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which provide vital support in most of the country's social and agricultural spheres.

"Laudable as this show of support is, the question remains whether government can indeed work with NGOs, the private sector and the beneficiaries," said a director - who declined to be identified - of an NGO affiliated to the Congress of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO), an umbrella organization for NGOs.

"The [government] ministries have always worked independently - they are territorial. It will be interesting to see if they can work together, and if the voices of the rural farmers will be heard, or whether solutions will be imposed," he told IRIN.

UNAIDS Country Coordinator Sophia Monico noted that "All the UN agencies are coordinating our work on AIDS. We're setting an example by forging an alliance between specialties."

She said the UN would adopt a comprehensive approach: food security issues would be handled by WFP, AIDS issues would be handled by UNAIDS, the UN Children's agency (UNICEF) would deal with issues concerning children affected by HIV and AIDS, and poverty reduction issues, under the authority of the UN Development Programme, would be strategically coordinated.

"It's like getting relief supplies to areas hit by disaster - it's not enough to put food on the plane, you have to get the delivery infrastructure working, the beneficiaries' needs sorted out, and rebuild the agriculture sector to make food production sustainable again," said Charles Ndwandwe, a food aid distributor in Mliba.

"That's what must be done in Swaziland," he commented. "It's harder when AIDS complicates things, but this is being factored in."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88355LAHORE Sunday, March 07, 2010 (IRIN) - Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country’s highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem. LAHORE Sunday, March 07, 2010 (IRIN) - Experts say it is only a matter of time before wind carries a deadly wheat stem pathogen into Pakistan, the ninth largest wheat producing nation in the world. Known as Ug99, the disease could potentially decimate the country’s highly vulnerable wheat crop and cause a huge food security problem.

“There is a real possibility that winds could move the pathogen directly into southern Pakistan from Yemen or even the Horn of Africa. Realistically, I believe it is only a matter of time before Ug99 or variants appear in Pakistan,” said David Hodson of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) Wheat Rust Disease Global Programme.

According to FAO, Ug99 is a virulent race of wheat stem rust first identified in Uganda in 1998 and 1999 that leaves behind fields filled with shriveled wheat grains.

Over the past decade, FAO estimates that 29 countries in East and North Africa, the Near East, and Central and South Asia, accounting for 37 percent of global wheat production, have been affected by the wind-borne Ug99 or were at potential risk.

Major wheat rust epidemics have occurred in the past, namely in the 1950s in North America and in 1993-94 in Ethiopia, with devastating consequences. Wheat rust decimated the grain crop across Pakistan in 1977, forcing the government to import over 2 million tons of wheat.

An Ug99 outbreak could be even more disastrous, FAO warns.

On high alert

In 2008, FAO put Pakistan and five other wheat producing countries on high alert following the detection of Ug99 in Iran.

“At present this virulent race of stem rust does not seem to have established a strong presence in Iran. However, the concern is that in time this status in Iran could change and analysis of regional wind patterns indicates that the pathogen could move into Pakistan,” Hodson told IRIN.

Soon after the discovery of Ug99 in Iran, Mujeeb Qazi, programme director of Pakistan’s National Wheat Program, warned that along with 80 percent of all wheat varieties planted in Asia and Africa most of Pakistan’s major wheat strains tested in Kenya over the past few years did not have adequate resistance to the disease.

“The big cause for concern in Pakistan is the widespread cultivation of wheat varieties that are extremely susceptible to Ug99 or variants. Of major concern is the cultivation of single wheat varieties like ‘Inquilab-91’ on millions of hectares in Pakistan,” Hodson said.

He also said many of the wheat-growing areas in Pakistan, particularly in the south, had a combination of heat and moisture that the disease favoured.

In 2008, the government allocated Rs 40 million [US$645,000] for research to combat the threat of Ug99 and over the past two years, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock has been working on developing resistant varieties.

Disastrous consequences

An outbreak of Ug99 would spell disaster in a country where most of the population is dependent on wheat to meet their basic food needs. According to official figures, 22 million tons of wheat is consumed in Pakistan every year, making it the fifth biggest wheat consumer in the world.

“Basically, we eat only roti [flat wheat flour bread] with pickles, day after day. This is all we can afford,” Muhammad Javed, a local labourer and father of six, told IRIN.

There are millions more like him in Pakistan, a country in which 35 percent of its 165 million citizens live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

“If wheat stem rust gets here, we would see famine,” Shahzad Chandio, a farmer in the southern Sindh province, told IRIN from the town of Jamshoro.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88340NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Here are the most popular new articles on the IRIN website over the last 24 hours. Updated hourly. This feature was launched on 18 July, but will display the latest, most popular items of today.NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - ---http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=73277HANOI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - As temperatures rise in Vietnam, a nationwide drought has dried up riverbeds, sparked forest fires and now threatens one of the world's richest agricultural regions, upon which millions depend for their livelihoods.HANOI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - As temperatures rise in Vietnam, a nationwide drought has dried up riverbeds, sparked forest fires and now threatens one of the world's richest agricultural regions, upon which millions depend for their livelihoods.

"The Mekong Delta is facing a serious drought," Nguyen Minh Giam, deputy director of the National Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Centre for the southern region, told IRIN.

Water levels on the Mekong River are at an almost 20-year low, largely as a result of the rainy season ending early and a precipitous drop in water flow upstream, he said.

With virtually no rainfall in the north since September, fires have burned through the northern provinces of Lao Cai and Lai Chau. In central Vietnam, sustained temperatures of about 38 degrees Celsius have sent hundreds to local hospitals.

According to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the heat and humidity have sparked a plague of insects and worms, which have eaten through thousands of hectares of rice paddies.

The drought conditions in the delta are also being felt in other Mekong countries because of the early end to the 2009 wet season, as well as low monsoon rainfall.

The Mekong River Commission, a regional monitoring body, on 26 February [http://www.mrcmekong.org/MRC_news/press10/drought-condition26-2-10.htm] warned of significantly lower than average water levels on the Mekong River in Laos and Thailand, which it says will affect the economic development of already impoverished people there.

Red River low

The Red River, upon which millions of Vietnamese in the north depend for fishing and irrigation, is at its lowest in more than 100 years, according to records beginning in 1902. The drought has turned sections of the normally bustling river into sand dunes, bringing river traffic to a halt.

"Never before has the water been so low that most ships cannot move," said Nguyen Manh Khoa, from Phu Tho province, whose debts are piling up as his new boat sits idle.

Each day Khoa does not work hauling cargo on the Red River he loses about US$80. But after getting his boat stuck on the sandbars several times, it has become too risky to venture out.

With the spring rice crops already in, frantic farmers living along the Red River have had no choice but to pay out large sums to private entrepreneurs armed with pumps to extract dwindling amounts of water for their fields.

As an emergency measure, the government has released water from its reservoirs, which are at critical lows. But the seedlings are competing with the state-owned hydroelectric firm, which says it will need the water to meet record-breaking power demands as temperatures are set to soar this summer.

Mekong Delta worst affected

The region under greatest threat, however, remains the southern Mekong Delta, known as the nation's rice bowl, where the Mekong River flows into the sea.

During the dry season, salt water from the South China Sea can push 30km inland. This year, communities as far as 60km up-river are reporting salt contamination.

"Salinization has been a pattern in the Mekong Delta the last 30 to 50 years, but things are getting worse every year due to climate change," said Pham Van Du, deputy director at the Department of Planting in the agricultural ministry. He estimates that 100,000ha of rice in the Mekong Delta are under threat.

Some blame China, where the Mekong begins, for Vietnam's water woes. According to the Mekong River Commission, China has built or is planning to build eight dams on its side of the border.

But meteorologists say the return of El Niño, a cyclical warming pattern, is the real culprit.

Ian Wilderspin, senior technical adviser for disaster risk management at the UN Development Programme in Hanoi, said climate change meant Vietnam would experience droughts that arrived sooner and lasted longer.

The government has moved to assist farmers by releasing water from the reservoirs and installing pumps. But considering the magnitude of the problem, "more needs to be done", he said.

"We have to look at the ways and means to build resilience of local communities," said Wilderspin, whether by providing drought-resistant seeds, planting different crops or protecting fresh water sources. "Climate change is only going to make these cycles worse."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88320NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Just as purchasers of electronic goods can buy extended warranties in case their TV goes wrong, farmers in parts of Kenya can now mitigate the risk of weather shocks by insuring their inputs at the point of sale. The programme, dubbed “Kilimo Salama”, Swahili for “safe farming”, was launched on 5 March in the Rift Valley provincial capital, Eldoret. It takes advantage of the ubiquity and multi-functionality of mobile phones in Kenya.NAIROBI Friday, March 05, 2010 (IRIN) - Just as purchasers of electronic goods can buy extended warranties in case their TV goes wrong, farmers in parts of Kenya can now mitigate the risk of weather shocks by insuring their inputs at the point of sale.

The programme, dubbed “Kilimo Salama”, Swahili for “safe farming”, was launched on 5 March in the Rift Valley provincial capital, Eldoret. It takes advantage of the ubiquity and multi-functionality of mobile phones in Kenya.

“Every time a farmer buys seeds, fertilizer, or other agro-chemicals, they can insure them, even for those who buy in very small quantities,” Rose Goslinga, the coordinator of the Agricultural Index Insurance Initiative at the Syngenta Foundation, told IRIN.

Policies, costing 10 percent of the inputs purchased, split equally between farmer and manufacturers, who hope to increase sales as a result, will be sold by agricultural suppliers armed with mobile phones loaded with dedicated software.

“To insure a farmer, the stockist first scans a code with all relevant product information via the phone’s camera; then he selects the weather station closest to the farmer’s fields.

“Finally, the stockist enters the farmer’s mobile number and sends the registration to our server. An immediate text message sent to the farmer provides him with his policy number and insurance confirmation,” said Goslinga.

“You have to make it very easy for the farmers to try the insurance,” she said, adding that the main administration costs incurred were sending out the text alerts.

Weather stations monitor rainfall amount and distribution in the field, which are then compared with the crop's water requirement vis-à-vis historic rainfall patterns. In case of crop failure due to drought or too much rain, farmers will receive a text message informing them of a payout, which they will directly receive through M-PESA, a cash transfer service run by telecoms operator, Safaricom.

Index-based insurance “pays out in events that are triggered by a publicly observable index, such as rainfall recorded on a local rain gauge”, notes a December 2009 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) report, Innovations in Insuring the Poor.

As the insurance is based on an independent trigger that cannot be influenced by actions of the farmer, it reduces the likelihood of insured individuals taking greater risks. However, there is a basis risk in that payouts may not always exactly match the losses farmers experience, which can be difficult for farmers to understand, noted IFPRI.

Challenges

The Kilimo Salama programme was piloted on a group of 200 farmers in the central region of Laikipia during the 2009 long rains. “They [the farmers] thought it sounded too good to be true,” said Goslinga, adding that the farmers were now taking more insurance after experiencing the benefit. Some of them received a payout of up to 80 percent.

“For farmers the biggest risk is weather. To minimize exposure, they tend to use as little inputs as possible. As a consequence, their harvest is below the optimum even when rains are good. Insurance gives them the security of a payout in case of a full crop failure, therefore promoting investment in farming inputs and subsequently improving productivity,” she said.

The insurance programme is targeting at least 5,000 farmers in Central, Rift Valley and Western provinces, covering maize and wheat, which are facing considerable weather risk.

Said Goslinga: “A key challenge is that insurance is new to farmers and it generally has a bad reputation. Capacity building and trust are key challenges.”

“These new tools to manage risk will need to be complemented with investments that reduce the risks faced by poor households, such as low-cost irrigation schemes and drought-resistant seed varieties,” the IFPRI report stated. “To make index insurance viable, a long-term, reliable, and homogeneous database of weather information is needed, as are weather stations that report weather data quickly.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88327KHARTOUM Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Weeks of fighting in parts of Darfur have raised concern over the plight of civilians, as insecurity has prompted humanitarian agencies to suspend activities in some areas.KHARTOUM Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Weeks of fighting in parts of Darfur have raised concern over the plight of civilians, as insecurity has prompted humanitarian agencies to suspend activities in some areas.

The clashes have led to displacements in eastern Jebel Marra in South Darfur and North Darfur states, and in western Jebel Marra and the Jebel Moon region in West Darfur state, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an update on 2 March, stressing that accurate information from the ground was very scarce because of lack of access.

The rebel Sudan Liberation Army, Abdel Wahid Nour faction (SLA-Nour), which refuses to join peace talks with the Sudanese government until a full cessation of hostilities is implemented, has accused government forces of attacking its positions east of Jebel Marra.

"There were random air attacks on villages," Al-Sadeq Al-Zein Rokero, an official with SLM-Nour faction, said. "The situation is very tragic. This may be the most violent attack by the Sudanese armed forces."

However, Sudan's army spokesman, Al Sawarmi Khaled, denied there had been any government military action. "The armed forces are present in the area to preserve order. They did not clash with Abdel Wahid's forces."

The US State Department cast doubt on this denial in a statement expressing extreme concern “about reports that Government of Sudan forces are conducting offensive operations against ... [SLA-Nour] positions in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur that have reportedly caused significant civilian casualties, displacement, and the evacuation of humanitarian organizations".

The statement called on both parties “to refrain from further violence and to allow the Joint African Union-UN Mission in Darfur access to Jebel Marra to assess the humanitarian situation and restore stability".

OCHA spokesman Sam Hendricks said media reports about the number of casualties in the recent fighting were unreliable.

“There is no way to find about casualties. There is no access to areas affected by the fighting," he said.

Malnutrition concerns

French aid group, Médecins du Monde (MdM), the only medical NGO in the Deribat area in eastern Jebel Marra, suspended operations after attacks last week, which resulted in the displacement of more than 100,000 people, the group stated on its website.

In the towns affected by the fighting - Marra, Kidingeer, Leiba and Fugoli, Feina and Deribat - three other NGOs suspended operations because of insecurity and fighting, Hendricks said. Besides water and sanitation, the NGOs also dealt with food, education, NFIs and livelihoods.

"The situation is very bad. We are really concerned," said Jerome Larche, head of MdM's Sudan programme. The population no longer had access to any medical facility, Larche said.

Malnutrition, which the French aid group was addressing, and access to clean water, were among the main problems for the population in the area, Larche said.

"After the fighting started, we had reports that six children died from malnutrition complications. The rate of acute malnutrition is going to increase if we cannot go back to the area soon," Larche said.

The NGOs, whose offices were looted during the fighting, are preparing emergency intervention to return to Deribat as soon as the fighting stops.

In western Jebel Marra, fighting since January between SLA-Nour factions, and between Sudan's government forces and SLA-Nour, displaced several villages, including Nertiti, Guldo and Thur, which are now reportedly calm, OCHA said in its update.

In Nertiti, a joint UN and NGO assessment estimates about 2,000 households recently arrived in the area.

In Guldo, leaders of the community, which is hosting the newly displaced, estimated about 3,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) were staying in the village. "Food shortages are of concern in the area due to the combination of poor harvest and lack of access to markets," the OCHA update stated.

In Thur, the Government Humanitarian Aid Commission, HAC, estimates around 1,760 IDP households are newly arrived.

Poor harvest

In North Darfur state, Aradeep, Katur, Fanga and Gosdor are among the areas affected by the fighting.

Local sources have said it is likely most of Gosdor's 12,000 people have moved to the hills, where food needs are a major concern, due to a recent poor harvest.

In West Darfur, clashes in January and early February between the Sudanese armed forces and the rebel Justice and Equality Movement, before the two parties signed a ceasefire agreement on 23 February, have led to unconfirmed reports of the displacement of around 4,000 people in Selea.

"Confirmation of overall affected population remains impossible until assessments can be conducted," the OCHA report said.

In anticipation of urgent needs, the World Health Organization and NGO partners have pre-positioned emergency health supplies for transfer to Kulbus hospital.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88293DAMASCUS Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people have fled drought-affected eastern Syria and those that remain are struggling to survive on limited food stocks, according to a UN report released at the end of February.DAMASCUS Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Thousands of people have fled drought-affected eastern Syria and those that remain are struggling to survive on limited food stocks, according to a UN report released at the end of February.

The third consecutive year of drought has caused widespread food insecurity in what has long been the poorest part of the country.

“This has led to a dramatic decrease in communities’ resilience capacity,” said Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria.

According to the report  - billed as a mid-term assessment of the Syrian Drought Response Plan (SDRP) formulated in August 2009 - 65,000 families have left the region since early 2009. Those who remain face chronic food shortages.

Eastern Syria, comprising the governorates of Deir Ezzor, Hassakeh and Al-Raqqa, has always been a poor and vulnerable part of the country, heavily dependent on agriculture. Economic development has been difficult; levels of education, health and nutrition lag behind those in the rest of the country.

The steppe-like terrain is susceptible to desertification, and irrigation methods are poor. Furthermore, water-intensive crops, like cotton, have depleted water resources.

UN and government figures say 1.3 million inhabitants have been affected - 800,000 severely.

Up to 80 percent of the severely affected are living on a diet of bread and sugared tea - not enough to cover daily calorific and protein needs for a healthy life, according to the report, which said: “Most families have not consumed animal protein in months. Daily meals have been reduced from three to one for adults, and to two for children.”

The report says the population will remain in “dire need” of food, agriculture and other assistance until mid-2010, when crops are expected to mature owing to recently improved rainfall patterns.

However, the SDRP has only received 19 percent of the revised-down request for just under US$44 million, forcing cutbacks to food handouts and other measures.

WFP this week started distributing emergency food aid to almost 200,000 people in the northeastern region, the agency said in a statement on 3 March, after plans to reach 300,000 beneficiaries were scaled down owing to a lack of funds.

Children at risk

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it was especially concerned about the nutritional intake of the region’s children. “It is not just about a scarcity of food: there are poor traditional feeding practices [as well],” said a spokesperson for UNICEF Syria.

According to the report, there was a drastic increase in nutrition-related diseases between 2006 and 2009. Recent data show 42 percent of children in the northeastern governorate of Al-Raqqa suffer from anaemia.

Other factors such as high food and fuel prices and the global financial crisis have aggravated the situation, said WFP’s Muzammil.

The UN has set up a Food Security Coordination Team, and aid agencies are focusing on their programmes in the region in the hope of preventing full-scale and irreversible devastation.

WFP said on 3 March it would start distributing supplementary food rations to under fives and pregnant and nursing mothers in Al-Shadadi District, Al-Hassakeh Governorate, one of the worst-affected areas with the highest rate of migration and school closures.

The report warns that more funding is needed to ensure future food security: Current interventions offer only short-term solutions when the region requires long-term development, say agencies.

“The region was improving before the drought,” according to UNICEF. “This is a real setback.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88294AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - The unusually large-scale migration of southern Nigerien farmers and pastoralists, heading north to look for work, has prompted concerns about food shortages in the northern Agadez region, according to local authorities.AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - The unusually large-scale migration of southern Nigerien farmers and pastoralists, heading north to look for work, has prompted concerns about food shortages in the northern Agadez region, according to local authorities.

"This seasonal migration always happens during the period between [harvests] and Agadez always welcomes people with open arms," said Almoumoune Ibrahim, son of the region’s highest ranking traditional leader.

“Normally after the harvest [in the south], the men leave the women and children with a stock of food and they come here to find work as farm labourers,” said Alhadji Guichem Kari, a member of a government committee set up after last September’s floods in the Agadez region, which displaced thousands and destroyed more than 3,000 homes

But this year’s increase in the number of migrants is testing the north’s perennial hospitality.

"Due to the shortages [of food] in the south, people have come earlier and in greater numbers… This year entire families have been coming. Some have found work and others beg," Kari told IRIN.

Flood damage around Agadez is still evident: Destroyed crops and homes, dead cattle, and sand-infested vegetable gardens no longer able to employ seasonal migrants.

Near the airport, Mariama Adao camps out with hundreds of other migrants. Originally from the southern town of Matameye near the Nigerian border, she arrived in Agadez three months ago with six of her eight children.

"This year when we saw that the rain was not coming I came here very quickly," she told IRIN. "Normally we harvest 20-25 sacks [of millet, sorghum, cow peas and peanuts], but this year we did not even harvest five… We needed to make headway and get here quickly to find a way to survive."

Abnormal rains in several parts of the country, including Agadez have led to crop deficits, forcing families nationwide to dip into their food stocks earlier than normal. Over half the population had only two months of food reserves left as of February - to last them until the next harvest in October, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Mariama Adao found work cleaning homes, as did her 17-year-old son. "I come here every year but this year there are a lot more of us than usual. Everyone [from the Matameye region] has had problems," she said.

"People who come here would never die of hunger because there is a real sense of solidarity [between people from the south and the Agadez region]," Hama Dilla Abdoulaye, the mayor of Agadez, told IRIN.

Food prices up

However, the local population is already facing higher food prices as a result of the region's poor harvest and higher demand prompted by the influx of migrants.

Two and a half kilograms of millet, a local food staple, which previously cost at most 500 CFA francs (US$1) between harvests, is now sold for 600 CFA francs in Agadez, according to residents

"Agadez is a small town; we feel the pressure of food and rent prices straight away," said Ousmane Issouf, a driver.

A recent national survey on household food security classified Agadez as one of the least vulnerable regions in the country - 7 percent of households faced problems getting food compared to the national average of 20 percent.

But the authorities were only able to carry out the survey in three urban areas of a 660,000sqkm desert region. A government travel ban and state of alert were recently lifted in the northern half of the country after years of rebel fighting, but rural zones - filled with pastoralists and farmers cut off from markets, hemmed in by sporadic fighting and hit by flooding - are still largely inaccessible.

Meanwhile, some say increased migration to the Agadez region has also been stimulated by rumours of free food handouts in the wake of the flooding. "People heard that food was being distributed in Agadez so they came here, [but that food] was only for people who been affected [by the floods],” Mayor Abdoulaye told IRIN.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88296AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Mariama Adao, aged 40 and a mother of eight, makes the 400km journey from Matameye in the south of Niger to Agadez in the north almost every year to make ends meet between growing seasons. However, this year’s poor harvest forced her to leave earlier - and bring six of her children with her. AGADEZ Wednesday, March 03, 2010 (IRIN) - Mariama Adao, aged 40 and a mother of eight, makes the 400km journey from Matameye in the south of Niger to Agadez in the north almost every year to make ends meet between growing seasons. However, this year’s poor harvest forced her to leave earlier - and bring six of her children with her.

She told IRIN about her life:

"My husband is a farmer [in the Matameye region]. We grow millet, sorghum, cow peas and peanuts. Normally we produce 20-25 sacks, but this year we did not even get five. There was not enough rain. We have only known one other year like this [in 2005].

"When we saw that the rains were not coming I came here very quickly... with six of my children. I could not just stay there with my arms folded. I had to make headway and come here quickly [to Agadez] to make money to survive. My husband is old. He stayed with our two eldest daughters, who are married. They manage to provide him with food.

"We travelled for more than two days in a truck. A month after we arrived I managed to find a job doing housework in someone’s home. My [17-year-old] son was also employed in another house. My youngest is two years old. The children do not go to school.

"We come to Agadez because, of the eight regions [of Niger], we feel that we will find the most solidarity here. You can find more food here too. We were told that there was a food distribution [intended for people in the Agadez area affected by the September 2009 floods] here, but we have not received anything yet.

"I come here every year but this year there are a lot more of us than usual. Everyone has had problems [in the Matameye region]. Among my neighbours [in Agadez], a few have managed to find work and the others beg.

"At the moment we are getting by; we help each other. If one person has nothing to eat, we share with them. There is a sense of goodwill, but it is hard. I will not go back before the next rainy season in the south [May]. We need rain."

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88297JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Long dry spells in parts of Africa and erratic rainfall in Asia have cast uncertain clouds over crop yields for 2010 in the world's poorest countries. Food prices in most developing countries are down from their 2008 crisis levels, but still higher than they were in 2007. JOHANNESBURG Tuesday, March 02, 2010 (IRIN) - Long dry spells in parts of Africa and erratic rainfall in Asia have cast uncertain clouds over crop yields for 2010 in the world's poorest countries. Food prices in most developing countries are down from their 2008 crisis levels, but still higher than they were in 2007.

In the first of a four-part series on food security in some of the world's most vulnerable countries, IRIN asks, "Are we heading for another crisis?"

It would take "two consecutive bad years" for a repeat of the 2008 food and fuel crisis to arise, said Abdolreza Abbassian, economist and secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Unlike the situation in 2008, global cereal stocks are at comfortable levels.

But there were "many factors at play" in food prices. "In fact, we're projecting prices to stay firm, even in the medium term (the next 10 years), although they may not exceed the highs witnessed in 2008," Abbassian commented.

It is still a matter of adequate supply to meet growing demand, and the supply of food cereals has been declining. The gradual reduction in subsidies and support for the world's biggest producers in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries - the US and the European Union (EU) in particular - has meant smaller surpluses.

"On the other hand, population growth and economic prosperity fuel demand - as in Asia, especially in China and India - therefore, we are moving into a situation whereby supply expansion could decelerate, while demand will continue to grow - sometimes even faster than in the past," said Abbassian. 

A paper by the OECD suggested that food prices would start rising again, "(albeit not to 2008 peaks) once economies come out of the recession, as the basic structural demand and supply-side determinants are still very much present ... [with] demand growing faster than supply. Food prices should therefore no longer be seen as a 'shock' or short-term 'crisis', but rather as a longer-term structural issue."

Biofuels still a threat

Some of the structural changes that brought about the 2008 food price crisis, such as diverting agricultural land from producing food cereals to grains for biofuel, had yet to be addressed, Abbassian said.

ActionAid, an international NGO, calculated in its new report, Meals per gallon: the impact of industrial biofuels on people and global hunger, that by 2020 biofuel consumption in the European Union (EU) would jump nearly four-fold, and that two-thirds would be imported, mainly from the developing world.

"Biofuels are conservatively estimated to have been responsible for at least 30 percent of the global food price spike in 2008," said ActionAid, which warned that a repeat of crisis could be in the offing, with the supply of food cereals likely to be compromised by a demand for biofuels in the EU.

"Up to 100 million more people could go hungry if Europe commits itself to a huge increase in biofuels consumption in order to meet new European Union legislation," said the report.

The legislation dates back to an agreement between the EU states in 2008 to meet 10 percent of their transport fuel needs from renewable sources, including biofuels, hydrogen and green electricity, by 2020.

In a scenario that takes into account a planned and predictable biofuel expansion in some countries, the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), projected maize prices rising by more than 20 percent by 2020, and by more than 71 percent in a drastic expansion scenario.

C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, academics at the University of Minnesota, wrote in an article published in 2007 in Foreign Affairs, an American magazine, that if the prices of staple foods continued to increase as per the IFPRI projections, the number of food-insecure people in the world would rise by over 16 million for every percentage increase in the real prices of staple foods.

ActionAid noted that "If all global biofuel targets are met, it is predicted that food prices could rise by up to an additional 76 percent by 2020." The NGO said it found that EU companies had already acquired, or were negotiating for, at least five million hectares in developing countries, which could threaten food supplies of some of the most vulnerable populations.

According to FAO, one in six people in the world are now hungry, with the 2008 crisis having pushed another 100 million into poverty and food insecurity.

There could be a solution. The global stock of cereals, which has relied on countries in the western hemisphere, has begun to look towards the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a regional organization comprising the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

Abbassian pointed out that Russia has become the world's second largest exporter of wheat after the US. "Unfortunately, they [the CIS] are located in a part of the world which is extremely vulnerable to environmental shocks."

Weaker international prices for sugar, dairy and cereals have caused FAO's Food Price Index, released on 2 March, to register a decline: "The index is down 21 percent from its peak in June 2008, but up 22 percent from the corresponding period a year ago," said Abbassian.

There was always a chance that prices might spike "as a result of market imbalances but, overall, high prices will encourage more investment in agriculture, which in turn will help in closing the gap between supply and demand", he noted.

Liliana Balbi, a senior economist at the FAO Global Information and Early Warning System, said she thought speculation was contributing to price volatility. "The fact is, prices go up quickly but don't come down fast."

Nevertheless, Abbassian was optimistic. "Technological progress and changing diets will help in maintaining a stable global food situation, even though developments at country/local level may not always be as rosy!"

The percentage hike in food prices varies between countries, as do the causes. Balbi's unit identified 33 countries that were the world's most food insecure in its Crop Prospects and Food Situation report for February - the first in 2010. Many were going hungry because they could not afford food.

Most countries on the February list have been there before; new entries are rain-poor Niger, conflict-torn Yemen and earthquake-hit Haiti.

The ActionAid report found that "each 10 percent increase in the prices of cereals (including rice) adds nearly US$4.5 billion to the aggregate cereals import cost of those developing nations that are net importers."

In the next three parts of the series, IRIN will provide a snapshot view of food vulnerability in the 33 countries spread across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

jk/he http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88287DAKAR Thursday, February 25, 2010 (IRIN) - Nutrition experts in Guinea are studying options for treating moderately malnourished children, as funding shortages disrupt normal programmes using fortified flour.DAKAR Thursday, February 25, 2010 (IRIN) - Nutrition experts in Guinea are studying options for treating moderately malnourished children, as funding shortages disrupt normal programmes using fortified flour.

In recent months local health centres ran out of supplies and had to refer families to remote facilities for corn-soya blend (CSB), used for the treatment of moderate acute malnutrition and provided by donors through the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

WFP is seeking funds to maintain CSB stocks in Guinea. “We recently received some CSB but needs still outweigh supply,” WFP-Guinea head of programme Foday Turay told IRIN. While recent unrest in the country led some donors to pull back, a lack of funding for WFP nutritional programmes pre-dates the latest instability.

Humanitarian workers told IRIN the current situation reflects the overall difficulty of attracting aid funding for Guinea and underlines the need to find alternative and long-term solutions.

“The break in WFP’s pipeline is representative of the problem everyone has finding [aid] funding for Guinea,” Reza Kasraï, head of Action contre la Faim (ACF) in Guinea, told IRIN.

“We’re in a no-man’s land between a politically stable country where donors would like to give development funds and a full-on emergency where humanitarian donors contribute regardless of the political situation.”

Stop-gap measures

The funding and supply breaks are forcing aid agencies and the Health Ministry to turn to temporary solutions – like using therapeutic foods designed for severe acute malnutrition – but a more sustainable strategy is needed, nutrition experts say.

When CSB stocks ran out, ACF used Plumpy’nut for some moderate malnutrition cases, Kasraï said.

“These are stop-gap measures… Using Plumpy’nut for moderate acute malnutrition is not in the national [malnutrition treatment] protocol, and just because the product is on hand does not mean it’s a long-term solution.” The product is more expensive than foods used to treat moderate acute malnutrition (MAM), he said.

Nutrition workers in Guinea are debating the viability of using Plumpy'nut for moderate cases if the need arises; another option being discussed is using local foods, prepared specially for children’s nutritional needs.

“Stop-gap measures may be better than nothing but a plan is needed to assure adequate funding for the CSB supply and access to contingency funds to mitigate the impact of CSB shortages,” Sheryl Martin of Helen Keller International in Guinea told IRIN.

“We are all frustrated by the lack of funding and are doing the best we can in the short term.”

Integrated

ACF’s Kasraï said it is important to use an integrated approach – not only therapeutic feeding but also programmes to address the principal causes of undernutrition in Guinea, by boosting people’s livelihoods, ensuring proper breastfeeding and weaning practices and improving home hygiene and access to health services, sanitation and safe water.

He said there is a growing movement towards community- and even household-based management of MAM, which would also reduce the strain on health centres. "The challenge is in finding a reliable way of ensuring that moderately malnourished children receive fortified [with vitamins and other micronutrients] and high-caloric diets in the home."

A January 2010 ACF nutritional survey in Conakry’s Matoto commune shows a global acute malnutrition rate of 7.3 percent, with 1.6 percent severe acute malnutrition, he said.

“While these percentages are not alarming, if you look at absolute numbers you’re talking about some 10,000 children suffering acute malnutrition – and that is in just one of five Conakry communes.”

Mamady Daffé, Health Ministry head of nutrition, said the combination of poverty and a lack of knowledge of children’s nutritional needs contributes to child malnutrition. He said even if families understand children’s nutritional needs, many do not have the means to meet them.

“People’s living conditions must improve. Without this we will not be able to tackle malnutrition," he told IRIN. "The cost of living is up; people cannot buy what they need to eat properly.”

In the Dixinn commune of Conakry, health workers conducting a nutritional survey in January saw a malnourished four-year-old girl. Her father is unemployed and her mother barely makes ends meet doing petty commerce.

“Sometimes I go for days without preparing a proper meal,” the mother, Fatoumata Keita, told IRIN. She said she often gives her daughter quinine to ease stomach pain.

The latest monthly nutritional survey in Conakry – carried out by HKI and the Health Ministry – showed a rise in moderate acute malnutrition among under-five children from 3.8 percent in January to 5.5 percent in February.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88233SANAA Thursday, February 25, 2010 (IRIN) - Cereal production in Yemen has declined for the second consecutive year due mainly to a lack of rainfall, according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Abdulmalik al-Thawr.SANAA Thursday, February 25, 2010 (IRIN) - Cereal production in Yemen has declined for the second consecutive year due mainly to a lack of rainfall, according to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation Abdulmalik al-Thawr.

Yemen’s grain production, including sorghum and wheat, declined to 675,000 tons in 2009 from 715,000 in 2008, according to the government’s Central Statistics Organization (CSO).

While aggregate cereal production in 2009 was only slightly lower than in the previous year, it was about 24 percent less than the 2007 bumper crop, according to a report [http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/ak342e/ak342e00.htm] by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

“Most of the water sources in valleys producing grain dried up… About 97 percent of the country’s agricultural land is threatened by desertification," al-Thawr said.

Ismail Muharram, head of the Agricultural Research & Development Authority based in the central governorate of Dhamar, said agriculture in Yemen largely depended on rainwater.

"The rainfall season was three weeks late, and as a result many crops withered, particularly in the central highlands," he said, pointing out that 2009 rainfall was much lower than average.

Impact of northern conflict

According to Muharram, conflict in the north is another factor behind the decline in food output.

"Many farmers from various districts in the northern governorates of Saada and Amran fled their farms, which have been left untended,” he said, noting that those farmers used to be responsible for about 20 percent of the country's cereal production.

FAO estimates that two million people - including conflict-affected civilians, refugees, and other vulnerable people - are likely to face increased food insecurity, requiring targeted food assistance estimated at about 100,000 tons during 2010.

Increasing `qat’ burden

`Qat’, a mildly narcotic leaf chewed by many Yemenis, accounts for one third of the value of agricultural production, and its plantation area is expanding every year - a fact that is also contributing to the steady drop in grain production, according to environmental specialist Mohamed al-Ariqi.

"Arable land used for `qat’ is expanding by 9 percent a year, whereas land used for grain and other crops is steadily shrinking,” he said, adding that `qat’ trees take up to 40 percent of annually consumed water supplies in the country.

Even the poorest households try and find money for ‘qat’. A recent WFP/UNICEF survey found that nearly half of pregnant and breastfeeding women consume the leaf, with detrimental effects on the nutritional status of mothers and children.

Food insecurity “severe”

A 19 February report [http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp00955.pdf] by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) said the vast majority of Yemeni households are net food buyers, even in rural areas, and only 4 percent of rural households are net food sellers. With cereal imports accounting for up to 80 percent of consumption requirements (90 percent for wheat and 100 percent for rice), the recent surge in international food prices has significantly affected domestic prices and affordability.

"Chronic household food insecurity is widespread and severe, and the country has one of the worst malnutrition rates in the world," Mohammed Bashir, head of local NGO Agricultural Cooperation Union, told IRIN.

A 25 February press release by the World Food Programme (WFP) set out preliminary results from its comprehensive food security survey:

- 32 percent of the population is food insecure, i.e. suffering from acute hunger;
- 12 percent of the population suffers from severe food insecurity;
- One in 10 children under five are acutely malnourished;
- 25 percent of all women of child-bearing age are malnourished.

Meanwhile, the government - supported by international donors such as the European Commission, World Bank and German Agency for Technical Cooperation - is developing a national food security strategy, which is expected to be finalized in May 2010, al-Thawr said.

Al-Thawr also called for the development of a water management strategy and a food security information system.

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88235GAZA CITY Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Sami al-Qouqa, a 30-year-old former fisherman from al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, lost his left hand when his fishing boat came under fire from an Israeli gunboat on 12 March 2007, in an incident documented by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. GAZA CITY Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Sami al-Qouqa, a 30-year-old former fisherman from al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, lost his left hand when his fishing boat came under fire from an Israeli gunboat on 12 March 2007, in an incident documented by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

“I was on my small fishing boat in Palestinian fishing waters when two Israeli warships approached me. The Israeli navy shouted at me: ‘Go back or we’ll kill you!’ Initially, I refused, so they began shooting at me. One of the gunboat’s shells hit me and seriously wounded my left forearm and hand,” al-Quoqa told IRIN.

He was taken to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City where doctors amputated his hand. He has since been unemployed and depends on the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) for food aid for his wife and two sons.

Gaza fishermen say ever-tightening restrictions on where they can fish, frequent attacks by Israeli gunboats and an economic blockade in place since 2007 are putting more and more of them out of business.

“Now, Israelis shoot all the time and without reason. The Israeli navy keeps confiscating fishing equipment and ripping up fishermen’s nets. We want a solution but we don’t know how or what or when. How long can this go on?” Muhamed Subuh al-Hissi, a member of the Palestinian fishermen’s trade union in Gaza, told IRIN.

He said that before the 23-day Israel-Hamas war in Gaza around the beginning of 2009 Israeli gunboats only opened fire on fishermen who strayed beyond the three-mile buffer zone, but now boats were shot at well within the zone.

Under the Oslo Accords, a peace agreement between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel signed in 1993, fishermen in Gaza were legally allowed to venture out 20 nautical miles. However, since the start of the second `intifada’ in 2000, the Israeli navy imposed a three-mile fishing limit, and has enforced it rigourously since last year’s war, saying it was necessary to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.

Israeli view

“The Israeli marines shoot at Palestinian boats which are suspected of smuggling arms into Gaza, posing a threat to the security of Israel," Avikhay Adrii, an Israeli army spokesman, told IRIN. “Some groups use Palestinian fishing boats for terror purposes and the Israeli navy must protect Israel’s shores.”

In early February Israeli Navy Commander Maj-Gen Eliezer Marom told reporters that Palestinian “terror organizations” were “making cynical use of Gaza’s fishermen for terror purposes” after the discovery on an Israeli beach of a third explosive device disguised as a barrel. He said any collaboration with the Palestinian militant groups who claimed responsibility for the launching of the barrels would harm fishermen’s livelihoods.

“Regular security ships guard the area, and allow Gaza’s fishermen to fish peacefully. I call on them not to cooperate with terror organizations and not to allow them to use these fishing boats for these purposes,” he said.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), from 20 January to 2 December 2009, there were 36 Israeli naval attacks on Gaza fishermen while enforcing their buffer zone.

Local witnesses said the latest incident was on 22 February, when Israeli gunboats fired on fishermen off the coast of Gaza, forcing them to return to shore. An Israeli military spokeswoman denied the shooting occurred.

Dwindling catches, hopes

According to Gaza-based Palestinian think-tank PAL-Think,10 years ago there used to be about 6,000 fishermen in Gaza catching 3,000 tons of fish a year; now there are around 3,600 making such small catches that some have turned to opening fish farms on land.

The Israeli blockade also prevents the export of fish out of Gaza, further hitting the livelihoods of fishermen.

“As a result of the Israeli-imposed restrictions on the Gaza Strip, Palestinian fishermen cannot reach many points and cannot catch many fish… All the boats fish in the same areas, and there are no fish as a result in Gaza,” Hamas agriculture minister Mohamed Ramadan Agha told IRIN.

He called on international organizations to take serious action to protect the livelihoods of Palestinian fishermen.

Meanwhile, former fisherman al-Qouqa is despondent: “I’m really living a miserable life because fishing is impossible with only one hand. I come to the port just to see and talk with my fishermen friends. I can’t stay at home all the time.”

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http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportId=88222JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need? JOHANNESBURG Wednesday, February 24, 2010 (IRIN) - Temperatures seem set to soar to perilously high levels because of climate change. In another 40 years, would maize still be the staple food in Kenya, already hit by five failed rainy seasons? If not, what could people grow and eat? And if you could grow maize, how much water and fertilizer would it need?

If you live in the remote semi-arid Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda - beset by 14 droughts in 25 years - you might also want to know what your options are for continued food security.

For the first time, a customized regional climate model linked to crop growing and water models, run on a supercomputer at Michigan State University (MSU), will help provide crop breeders in three East African countries - Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania - with detailed answers on crop yields.

Many research institutions have been working on models to predict the impact of climate change on food production in Africa, but in a few months the MSU model will help scientists and breeders to zoom in at a regional level on the possible impact of climate change on a wide variety of crops in these countries.

The research could help produce climate-resilient varieties of food crops, said Jennifer Olson, lead researcher and associate professor at MSU's College of Communication Arts and Sciences.

"East Africa is already experiencing the impact of climate change - food crops are experiencing extreme water stress," she commented. People living in Kenya's highlands, who have traditionally grown tea and coffee, have begun experimenting with maize and beans as the climate has grown warmer.

Work on the model began 10 years ago with the recording of relevant data, such as the impact of nutrients on a certain food crop, or the impact of water stress on another, which were subsequently fed into the model. "The model is still being perfected," said Olson.

The model can experiment with the impact of climate change, such as high temperature and water stress on a certain crop variety, saving the time that would have been spent on field trials, "which will help speed up the agricultural research cycle", she noted.

The researchers intend to launch the model at a workshop in June. Concern about increasing food insecurity in East Africa has prompted two institutions to set up a research grants to encourage innovative solutions.

The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), based in South Africa, and the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), in Nairobi, Kenya, announced a US$10.67 million grant from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) to support the establishment of a multidisciplinary competitive funding mechanism for biosciences in Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.

ILRI's Bruce Scott said they would be looking for innovative solutions using bioscience to improve crop resilience to climate change, or perhaps to improve the shelf-life of a food product.

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