FAO/GIEWS - Foodcrops & Shortages 11/00 - SOMALIA* (6 November)
Harvest of the main season (“Gu") crops, recently completed, is satisfactory. The season’s cereal production, estimated at 212 000 tonnes, is about 22 percent above the post-war (1993- 1999) average. Widespread rains in April/May and good “Hagay" rains at the beginning of July helped developing crops in Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, Hiran, Bay, Bakool and parts of Lower Juba. Improved security conditions have also encouraged some households to return to their farms and facilitated farming activities. However, poor harvests are anticipated in some pockets of Gedo, Lower Juba and Middle Juba Regions due to erratic and insufficient rains.
Despite some improvement in the overall food supply situation in parts of southern Somalia, serious malnutrition rates are increasingly reported, reflecting diminished livelihoods due to a succession of droughts and longer-term effects of years of insecurity and lack of investment in the economy.
Elsewhere, in north-western Somalia (Somaliland) the food situation is precarious in some agro-pastoral areas in Togdheer, Awdal and Sanag where successive below-normal rains have severely affected crop and livestock production. With community support waning, migration of people and livestock, mainly camels, to Ethiopia and other regions is reported.
A UN Inter-Agency appeal was launched in July 2000 for about US$15.6 million to assist some 750 000 vulnerable people in Somalia. Total pledges for the 2000/01 marketing year amounted to 24 000 tonnes, of which 19 000 delivered so far.
Back
to menu