Hope for Niger

2005-08-12 14:34

Dakoro - Farmers and herdsmen in starving southern Niger are optimistic that next month's harvest will end their worries for the time being, as rain has fallen and there has been no sign of dreaded locust swarms.

"We haven't yet had any worrying breaks in the rain and the locusts won't come back. God willing, the harvests will be good," farmer Hamidou Ibrahim said on the edge of his extensive fields of millet and black-eyed peas outside Dakoro.

Hamidou, 55, his face worn by hard labour, is relieved that for the next year at least there should be no repetition of the food shortages that have brought death to humans and animals alike in the region.

On the pastureland of the immense Tarka valley, where Bororo herdsmen and Hausa farmers coexist relatively peaceably, the skeletons of cattle and camels can still be seen in the fresh green grass.

According to officials, last year's drought and locusts swarms caused the loss of between 75 and 90% of the crops, and a similar proportion of the livestock.

Last month, as the world began responding belatedly to the impact of the food shortages, British charity Oxfam began buying up cattle that were dying or not expected to live, at above the market price.

Only a few weeks later, Oxfam spokesperson Louis Belanger is a happier man.

"The rain is falling, there is more pasture and the animals are recovering," he said.

Abass, a Bororo shepherd from Karahane, near Dororo, said as he watched over his flock grazing beside a field of sprouting millet that a year ago there was not a stalk to be seen.

"Our only fear now is the farmers, who are nervous about possible damage to their crops from our animals," he added.

Regional governor Ahmed Dan-Mallan said some had sown late because of lack of seed, but the good rains and the absence of parasites would result in a normal harvest.

But the argument as to whether the food situation in Niger was as black as it was painted is set to run on.

According to the United Nations 2.5 million of the 12 million-strong population are suffering food shortages, children have died of severe malnutrition and thousands will not survive without the necessary food and medical treatment.

But the same day Niger's President Mamadou Tandja repeated that the country was suffering only a "slight food shortage" which "some people" wanted to exaggerate into a famine for their own purposes.

Opposition parties have been enraged by such remarks, accusing the government of concealing the reality of the situation, though experts have deliberately held off using the word "famine".

Critics have also said that while pictures of dying babies in Niger have grabbed the front pages and the television screens, there are similar cases elsewhere in the Sahel region, including Burkina Faso and Mali.

And UN Secretary General Kofi Annan this week said southern Africa should not be ignored.

- SAPA