Harvesting of the 1998 wheat crop is complete. The output is provisionally estimated at 550 000 tonnes, 13 percent down on the bumper crop of last year but still above average. A reduction of 17 percent in the area planted was partially compensated by higher yields due to adequate water supplies and favourable temperatures. Planting of the 1998 main season cereal crops, is about to start in northern and central areas.
Despite an overall satisfactory food supply position, grave food supply difficulties persist in southern parts of the country. Intensified civil conflict since January, particularly in Bahr El Ghazal, has resulted in fresh waves of population displacement, aggravating an already precarious food situation following the 1997 drought-reduced harvest. This, together with difficulties in distribution of relief assistance, has led to severe malnutrition in Bahr El Ghazal, Western Upper Nile and Eastern Equatoria States, with starvation-related deaths reported from some areas. Food prices have risen sharply throughout the region and are too high for the majority of the population. Coping mechanisms have been largely exhausted. In Bahr El Ghazal region alone 350 000 people, including 150 000 recently displaced, are at risk of starvation unless adequate relief assistance is distributed urgently. Nutrition surveys carried out by UNICEF on children under five in Wau, the capital of West Bahr El Ghazal, indicate an overall malnutrition rate of 29 percent, with 9 percent severely malnourished.
Early prospects for the 1998 main season food crops, to be harvested from July, are not encouraging. Plantings, which normally take place in April, have been reduced. Large areas have remained uncultivated because of population displacement. Latest satellite images indicate late, erratic and generally insufficient rainfall from late March to late May, with precipitation well below normal in Bahr El Gazal, the state most affected by the civil strife, and in areas of Western Equatoria. Severe shortages of seeds, following last year�s poor harvest, have also compromised plantings.