10m Africans need food aid

2005-07-07 19:54

Johannesburg - More than 10 million people in southern Africa will need humanitarian assistance in the coming year because of poor agricultural production, said food agencies on Thursday.

After a recent crop assessment, it was found that Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Swaziland were not able to grow enough food to meet domestic needs.

Even if there were considerable commercial imports, serious food shortages would persist until the next harvest in May 2006.

This was according to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Food Programme (WFP).

Large-scale food assistance across the region at household level was needed.

Agricultural reform, trade

They said the region also needed to formulate national policies on staple food prices, agricultural reform and trade at national and regional level.

Together, the 13 member states of SADC produced a cereal surplus of 2.1 million tons compared with 1.1 million tons a year ago.

Most of the excess was produced by South Africa, which harvested a surplus of about 5.5 million tons this year.

Assessments had found that about 2.8 million tons of food would need to be commercially imported into the countries to meet the largest part of the shortfall.

$266m needed immediately

Of the total amount of food aid required by the countries, the WFP needed $266m or 477 000 tons pledged immediately so that food could either be purchased locally with cash donations or shipped to the region.

They said: "Given the gravity of the findings, WFP, FAO and SADC today called on donor governments worldwide to respond quickly and generously with food aid donations in kind or cash to avoid widespread hunger from developing into a humanitarian disaster.

"The assessment teams were struck by the scarcity of maize at harvest time in some countries, prompting the need for an immediate response."

Government representatives from each country, together with UN and non-government organisations, were discussing the findings at a two-day meeting, which started on Thursday.

- SAPA