A poor harvest in the West African country of Niger has caused food prices to shoot up at a time of the year in which they would normally be at their lowest. Concerned that the bad harvest could lead to a full-blown hunger crisis, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is planning an urgent scale-up of operations to reach as many as three million people with food aid.
Niger is currently in the immediate post-harvest period, a time when the price for staples like millet ought to be coming down. Instead, as WFP experts report, the failed harvest, brought on by drought, has driven them up. In October 2011, a 100 kilogramme bag of millet cost the equivalent of 29 US dollars (USD) on the market in Maradi, Niger’s third-largest city. In December, it cost more than 41 USD. Food security experts say that right now, people in Niger are paying 37 percent more for millet than they were last year.
According to the Government of Niger, some 750,000 people across the country are severely insecure, a number expected to reach one million soon as the country moves towards its traditional lean season in March and April.
In response to the looming food crisis, WFP is aiming to support some 3.3 million people with life-saving food assistance over the coming year.
Already towards the end of October 2011, Welthungerhilfe had warned that a second devastating drought disaster was emerging on the African continent. West African countries in the Sahel Zone, namely Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, are the worst hit, and this will lead to a grave shortage of food in the early months of 2012, according to forecasts. The latest rainy season in these countries was poor and the number of crops harvested to date lies well below the normal yield.
As Welthungerhilfe reports, current satellite images show that the rivers are carrying far too little water, and that the parched areas are spreading to larger and larger areas. The situation is being worsened by the fact that food prices are on the increase, instead of falling as they normally do after a harvest. In Niger, the food supply is already insecure in 85 percent of the villages in rural areas, and in many communities in Burkina Faso there are already warnings of massive food supply problems come the spring.
Welthungerhilfe is working to bring together other European aid organisations and the most important donors in the region as part of its Alliance2015 project. The aim is to provide people affected with the support they need now, in order to prevent a famine developing similar to the one currently hitting East Africa.
