FAO/GIEWS - Foodcrops & Shortages 10/00 - ERITREA* (18 September)
Prospects for 2000 main season cereal and pulse crops to be harvested from November are bleak, due mainly to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of farmers following escalation of the war with neighbouring Ethiopia in May/June 2000. The total area sown by end- July was less than 40 percent of normal due to displacement, loss of basic tools and destruction of basic infrastructure. Despite improved rains from the second-half of July, late and below-normal rains at the beginning of the season have also delayed planting and early establishment of crops. Gash Barka and Debub administrative zones (Zobas), which are the country�s main grain producing areas and normally supply more than 75 percent of Eritrea�s cereal production, have been at the centre of the recent clashes and may have little or no harvest in 2000. The failure of two successive rainy seasons in Anseba, North Red Sea and South Red Sea administr ative zones has also severely affected nearly 340 000 people.
As the next harvest is only expected in November/December 2001, these regions known as �the bread basket of Eritrea� together with other parts will depend on emergency relief food for at least the next 18 months. In August, WFP distributed about 13 500 tonnes of food to more than 586 000 waraffected and 67 800 drought- affected people.
Donor support is sought for a revised Emergency Operation approved by FAO and WFP in June this year for a total of 151 000 tonnes of food assistance to 750 000 internally displaced people and for a UN Inter-Agency Appeal to assist some 335 000 drought affected people. By early September total pledges amounted to 90 800 tonnes of which about 55 000 tonnes had been delivered .
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