Crisis
According to current estimates, the Sahel region as a whole registered a grain surplus of 85,000 tons. However, Niger and Chad suffered grain deficits of around 224,000 and 217,000 tons, respectively. An increase in food prices is fuelling the food crisis, especially in Niger, where millions of people are facing risk of food shortages and outright starvation.
In the most affected areas of Niger, access to food staples is becoming increasingly difficult and severe cases of child malnutrition have been reported to be on the rise. The scarcity of water and fodder is adversely affecting the health of the cattles, camels, sheep and goats that comprise virtually the only source of food and income for nomadic communities. Competition for limited resources has also resulted in some local conflicts.
Acute malnutrition rates have risen to 13.4 per cent in the southern Niger Maradi and Zinder departments, with 2.5 per cent of this group identified as severely malnourished children under age five, says UNICEF quoting recent nutrition surveys by the United Nations and several non-governmental organizations.
The food shortage impacts some 3.3 million people —including 800,000 children under age five— in some 3,815 villages. Officials estimate cereal deficits at 223,448 tons and livestock feed deficits at 4,642,219 tons.
Although rains began early this year and have fallen regularly, initially inspiring hope for a better agricultural season, relief will not come before the harvest in October. Villagers are just now entering into the critical period known as the lean season — the months when food stocks are at their lowest. It is also the moment when farm workers need more caloric energy to cultivate their fields, since most of the agrarian labour in Niger is performed manually.
Read more about this topic: 2005–2006 Niger Food Crisis
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—Carlos Marighella (d. 1969)
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“In crisis is cleverness born.”
—Chinese proverb.