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afrol News, 8 February - Also normally humid Guinea-Bissau is now noting the effects of the drought in the Western Sahel. A rainfall deficit during the last half year is expected to produce significant shortfalls in agricultural production in the country, which is one of Africa's poorest. Due to the rainfall deficit registered throughout the country in the last half of 2002, the cereal production of Guinea-Bissau's 2002-2003 agricultural campaign is expected to decline by 12 percent as compared to the last agricultural campaign. International humanitarian agencies foresee a need to increase food assistance around May/June, when households have depleted their stocks of rice. The upcoming food crisis i Guinea-Bissau is a product of the general drought in the Western Sahel, which has hit Mauritania (43 percent reduction of food production) and Cape Verde (73 percent reduction) hardest. Food production in Senegal, The Gambia and parts of Mali is also reduced. The regional drought has however stricken further south than the Sahel droughts usually do, into the humid zones of the Sudan climatic belt. In neighbouring Guinea, for example, there are alarming reports of lowering ground water levels. Otherwise humid Guinea and Guinea-Bissau have had sparse rains during the last months, endangering the water intensive crops common in these countries. Humanitarian agencies are now closely monitoring the food security situation in Guinea-Bissau, where the population at large lives in great poverty and is weakened by years of political chaos. On 1 January, the World Food Programme (WFP) started implementing its monitoring and food distribution programmes, following arrival of commodities to the country. "During the month of January, over 22,900 beneficiaries were assisted by WFP and 240 tons of food were distributed under Food-for-Work, School Feeding, Health and Nutrition and Food-for-Training programmes," the UN agency reports from Bissau. However, due to the late arrival of a food shipment, WFP had been forced to reduce the number of children assisted. Food requested by the agency has to reach Bissau by the end of June - when the country is most likely to face food deficits - if not, there was expected to be a major break in supplies for the needing. According to a recent nutrition profile study, conducted by WFP, it has been confirmed that malnutrition is most severe among pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under 5 and that the most affected regions are Cacheu, Oio, Bafata and Gabu. WFP says it has included among the priority regions for its operations Cacheu area, which had long been too insecure to enable expanded WFP assistance.
The occasional droughts in Guinea-Bissau usually affect the upland areas,
where they can do heavy damage to the rain-fed rice production in these
areas. Rice is one of the country's major food staples. ©
afrol News.
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